Morocco was held to a draw by Mali (1-1) on Friday, December 26, at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat, during the second matchday of Group A of CAN 2025. In an evening billed as a true test, the Atlas Lions controlled the game for long stretches without truly securing their lead, before being caught in the second half by a disciplined and dangerous Malian Eagles team in transition.<\/p>\n
From the outset, the match took the form of a tug-of-war. Deprived of Romain Sa\u00efss (confirmed absent the day before) and with Achraf Hakimi still being managed physically, Hoalid Regragui had to adjust his balance against a compact Malian side, coached by Tom Saintfiet, which came to challenge Moroccan dominance in duels.<\/p>\n
Morocco eventually found the breakthrough just before halftime. Following a handball by a Malian player in the box, Brahim D\u00edaz converted the penalty to give his team the lead (45+5). A goal \u201cat the best moment,\u201d which seemed set to launch a more open second half.<\/p>\n
However, Mali responded after the break, leveraging VAR and their ability to exploit spaces. After a controversial situation in the Moroccan box, the referee awarded a penalty to the Eagles; Lassine Sinayoko took charge and equalized (64), completely reigniting the match.<\/p>\n
The end of the match swung into a sequence of Moroccan pressure. Offensive substitutions brought more presence in the box, and Youssef En-Nesyri created a major opportunity, but goalkeeper Djigui Diarra made a decisive save to preserve the draw. In the final seconds, Mali held firm during a very tense moment in front of their goal, confirming their composure in a hostile environment.<\/p>\n
In the standings, Morocco remains in a good position but has not yet secured its ticket to the knockout stage: qualification will be decided on the final matchday, Monday, December 29, against Zambia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Morocco was held to a draw by Mali (1-1) on Friday, December 26, at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat, during the second matchday of Group A of CAN 2025. In an evening billed as a true test, the Atlas Lions controlled the game for long stretches without truly securing their lead, before being<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334101,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[256,1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-334100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afcon-en","8":"category-non-classifiee"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334100"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":334214,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334100\/revisions\/334214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mountakhab.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}