Nigeria legend Babangida picks Morocco as AFCON favourites

While Tijani Babangida is not ruling out a successful campaign for Nigeria at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), the Super Eagles legend believes Morocco are strong favourites to win the trophy.

The 35th edition of the AFCON is scheduled to kick off in the North African nation from December 21 to January 18. It will be the first time that the tournament will be played over the Christmas and New Year period.

The tournament will bring together the best from African soil, the likes of Tunisia, who will partucpate for the 22nd time and extended their record for consecutive participations, reaching the tournament for the 17th time in a row, having not been absent since 1994.

Comoros, Gabon, Sudan and Zimbabwe will make their return to the continental tournament after missing out on 2023, Benin and Uganda make their return after an almost five-year absence from the event.

Meanwhile, Botswana will feature for the second time after their first participation in 2012. Despite the aforementioned list of clubs, Babangida, who played an important role in Nigeria’s Olympic triumph in Atlanta in 1996, is tipping Morocco to win the trophy.

‘Everything is pointing to Morocco to win AFCON’

“Most of the African teams going to 2026 World Cup looks strong to win the AFCON. You can see Senegal, Morocco, Egypt, although the Egyptians are in transition, Tunisia and even Congo that defeated Nigeria should not be ruled out,” said Babangida as quoted by Tribal Football.

“When I look at Morocco, the team is a strong favourite to win AFCON. Morocco played at the semi-finals of the last FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the country played in the semi-final of the last Olympics in Paris. The U20 team of Morocco won the FIFA U20 World Cup few months ago in Chile.

“The team defeated top footballing nations like Brazil and France to win the tournament. The football developmental plan of Morocco is working fine and everything is pointing to Atlas Lions of Morocco to win the AFCON as host of the tournament, but there is no AFCON tournament that I will not consider Nigeria as one of the favourites.

“When you write off Super Eagles, that is when the team go all the way to shock you with good results. Despite the retirement of Williams Troost-Ekong, the captain, I still feel that the Super Eagles will come out very strong in the tournament.”

Morocco will feature in Group A alongside Zambia, Comoros, and Mali.