AFCON 2025 Final: Why Morocco vs Senegal is a first of its kind
When Morocco and Senegal walk out in Rabat for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations final on Sunday, they will not be meeting as strangers. In fact, few African national teams know each other better.
The two sides have faced each other 38 times across more than five decades, making Morocco Senegal’s third-most played opponent in international football, behind only Guinea and Mali. For Morocco, only Tunisia appears more often in their record books.
Yet one detail makes this final extraordinary.
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Despite all those meetings, Morocco and Senegal have never played each other at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Between them, the two nations have appeared in 145 AFCON matches, won multiple titles and produced some of the continent’s greatest players. Still, their paths had never crossed at Africa’s biggest stage until now.
That changes in Rabat.
A rivalry built outside AFCON
Historically, Morocco have had the edge in this rivalry. The Atlas Lions have recorded 21 wins to Senegal’s nine, with eight draws, and a commanding 51–25 goal difference.
Their most meaningful competitive clashes came during World Cup qualification. In 2001, both teams met on the road to the 2002 tournament in Japan and South Korea. A goalless draw in Morocco was followed by a 1–0 Senegal win in Dakar, sealed by El-Hadji Diouf. That result helped launch Senegal’s famous run to the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup.
Before that, Morocco had knocked Senegal out in qualifiers for the 1994 World Cup, the 1982 World Cup, and the 1976 AFCON, the latter ending with Morocco lifting their last continental title almost 50 years ago.
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They also met in Olympic qualifiers in 1983 and World Cup preliminaries in 1970 and 1974, with Morocco again coming out on top.
Friendlies tell a different story
Since those 2001 World Cup qualifiers, the rivalry has largely been played out in friendlies. Morocco have won all six of those meetings, including the most recent in 2022, which featured experimental squads just days after the World Cup in Qatar.
The teams also crossed paths in the 2025 African Nations Championship semi-final, a competition limited to home-based players. Morocco progressed on penalties after a 1–1 draw, but neither current coach Walid Regragui nor Senegal’s Pape Thiaw was in charge then, making it a poor predictor of what lies ahead.
A first time that feels overdue
The very first meeting between the two countries came back in 1968, when Morocco won a World Cup qualifier 1–0 thanks to a late Boujemaa Benkhrif goal. More than half a century later, the rivalry reaches a new peak.
Morocco and Senegal have played each other almost everywhere.
They have fought over World Cup places. They have crossed paths in regional and continental qualifiers.
But on Sunday, for the first time ever, they meet where it matters most.
An AFCON final.
SportsLigue