Morocco have spent a LOT of money on this team, so losing is unthinkable

One month of compelling African football reaches its climax in Rabat on Sunday, as Africa Cup of Nations hosts Morocco face off with Senegal to determine the winners of the 35th edition of the AFCON.

The final - which is as many people had predicted - brings together the two highest placed teams in the FIFA World Rankings, where Morocco are 11th and Senegal are 19th, and will see a collision between arguably the two biggest success stories in the continent's game over the last ten years.

For Senegal, finalists in three of the last four editions, victory would validate the federation's decision to replace AFCON-winning head coach Aliou Cisse with Pape Thiaw in 2024, while also cementing the standing of this generation as one of the most successful African football has ever known, given their consistency at the Nations Cup and the new ground they've broken with an unprecedented three World Cup appearances in a row.

There is no doubting, however, that victory on Sunday means much, much more to Morocco, to the point where head coach Walid Regragui has already pointed out that anything other than victory for the hosts on January 18 will be seen as failure.

"We're favourites and we don't hide from that," the Morocco head coach told ESPN ahead of the tournament. "We can't tell you we're not, but the hardest thing, the country who will have the most difficulty bringing home the cup is Morocco.

"Why is there so much pressure? Because if we don't win [the title], we'll say that we've lost."

In a sporting sense, there have been plenty of arguments before and during the tournament that this title is Morocco's to lose.

The squad is arguably the richest and deepest in the continent, many of this team have the collective experience of reaching a World Cup semifinal together - unprecedented ground for an African team, they headed into the tournament in wonderful form; enjoying an international record winning streak, while home support and home comforts have helped fuel the belief that this is their year.

The presence of Regragui, while divisive among supporters, has also ensured stability and guaranteed that Morocco have a coach who knows the team, knows the individuals, knows the playing style, and knows the stakes, inside out, while in Achraf Hakimi, the Atlas Lions also boast the continent's outstanding player in the world today, having been named Africa's Footballer of the Year in November.

However, beyond the sporting plan, Sunday's fixture is important landmark in the journey of this country, the growth of this nation, and the development plan that King Mohammed VI laid out over two decades ago.

Football is one of the key pillars that Morocco has identified as a way of shaping the country's identity and standing within the global landscape, with the King outlining his long-term vision and setting the nation on a roadmap which was launched in 2008, following steady investment in football infrastructure over the previous decade.

In 2009, the country inaugurated the Mohammed VI Academy in Salé, which has furnished the national side with some of the players who have underpinned this unprecedentedly successful cycle under Regragui, including Azzedine Ounahi, who remains with the squad despite picking up a calf injury ahead of the Last 16 victory over Tanzania.

"[Inaugurating the academy] was the major turning point in Moroccan football history, because it embodies the philosophy of professionalism and scientific development, and places the Moroccan player in an environment that matches the best global standards," FA President Faouzi Lekjaa said last year.

"[This] isn't a temporary surge, but the beginning of a long path that will make Morocco a continental and global football power."

While technically, each age group at the academy work to consistent principles, ensuring players graduate through the ranks and are seamlessly able to adapt to the playing standards and stylistic demands, Regragui has also inculcated his own philosophy - grounded on humility - at the heart of this Morocco squad.

It's a philosophy that has sought to retain and harness the country's natural talent, while ending the profligacy of past generations by rooting the players in the collective and ensuring that discipline is as valued as flair and technical ability.

It's progress not too far removed from Senegal's own example as they finally ended years of underachievement following the glories of 2002 to become African football's most consistent competitors.

Academies have been absolutely central to Senegal's rise as a football power as well, with Diambars and Generation Foot in particular transforming how players are developed and preparing them tactically and technically to enjoy long and fruitful careers in the professional game.

play

1:09

Walid Regragui: It's '50-50' we beat Senegal in AFCON final

Morocco head coach Walid Regragui looks ahead to his sides AFCON final against Senegal. 

"We always had players of talent; Hakim [Ziyech], [Adel] Taarabt, [Younes] Belhanda, [Mbark] Boussoufa, [Jaouad] Zairi, we've always had super generations, like Senegal always did," Regragui told ESPN, "but their mindset was to be consistent, our mindset must be to be consistent."

"That's how we rival Europeans and the South Americans. For Senegal to become consistent, it was complicated for them, like Morocco, they receive criticisms, with people saying they could do better, like they do with us.

"But we see that the best teams are here at the end," he added. "I want to change our mindset, our objective is not just to win this cup and be happy for 50 years and say we won the AFCON, but we need to be present, to be consistent, to enjoy cycles [of success]."

The investment in the training facilities, the academies, the youth programmes, the professional coaching systems, the stadiums, the infrastructure and the tournament hosting comes with the aim of improving Morocco's international positioning, and elevating its modern reputation and prestige beyond the country's own borders.

According to Lekjaa, hosting major tournaments -notably the World Cup - "evokes a lever of international influence through soft power" which is helping Morocco find its place in the North African and Arab worlds.

Across the country, often particularly present on sporting and transport facilities, are advertisements for 'Morocco NOW: Invest and Export', the state-driven industrial platform to help encourage and capture investment opportunities, develop an ecosystem for entrepreneurship and innovation, and stimulate the country to unprecedented levels of growth.

"Morocco NOW reflects the kingdom's vision, its youth dynamism, its industrial innovation, its entrepreneurs' agility, its historical openness and the growth potential that Morocco offers for your business to thrive," reads a mission statement on their official website.

The successful hosting of the Nations Cup, the Women's AFCON, and later, the 2030 World Cup to come has the potential to become a driver for broader infrastructure, touristic, sporting and economic development, while sports - and specifically football - has become a central pillar in the country's policy for driving social cohesion, education and youth engagement.

We're already seeing infrastructure investment spreading to transport hubs, transport networks, hotels, and urban regeneration, with hopes that Morocco can avoid becoming like South Africa or Brazil, who invested heavily ahead of hosting the World Cup in 2010 or 2014, but have subsequently failed to effectively utilise the sporting infrastructure left behind.

There is some discontent in the country that public spending priorities are not truly aligned with the country's needs, where public hospitals can leave a lot to be desired, and existing flooding protocol was unable to prevent 37 deaths in the coastal province of Safi just four days before the tournament began.

Victory at the Nations Cup may not ultimately be the single factor that validates Morocco's sporting investment roadmap - there's a longer-term vision there after all. However, ending the 50-year wait to conquer the continent would be a symbolically powerful and paradigm-shifting achievement for the country and the national side, while defeat, and yet another AFCON failure, could risk changing the population's appetite for the ongoing prioritisation of sporting investment in the name of Morocco's growth.

Regragui, certainly, shares Lekjaa's long-term vision for the country's on-field sporting success.

"I hope this is not the last final in Morocco's history, but just a start," Regragui concluded. "If we don't win, we can't think that that was our chance and we'll never miss it again. This is not my mindset."

"Our aim is to win, to stop our negative runs [at the AFCON], but that won't just end [on Sunday] if we win or not, It's not that we win tomorrow, we have a party, and that was it. I want to win a second star, and a third star."

"We want to write history, and I don't want to be negative, but the objective is not just to say we won or we lost, and be happy with that."

As well as being a new dawn, victory on Sunday would also represent symbolic closure, turning the page on half a century of underachievement, and finally aligning Morocco's African reputation - and trophy cabinet - with the standing the country hopes to validate on the continental level.