A former Africa Cup of Nations star has made a shocking "arrogant" claim about one of the tournament's favourites.
Reda Abdel Aal, who represented Egypt at the tournament in the past, stated that Morocco will fall short in their endeavour to win AFCON 2023, predicting them to follow the path of Algeria who lost the final in 2021 due to "overconfidence".
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The Atlas Lions made a strong start to their campaign, picking up a 3-0 victory over Tanzania on Wednesday and are regarded by many to be capable of winning the entire competition.
The side can draw inspiration from the 2022 FIFA World Cup run that saw them become the first-ever African team to reach the semi-finals of the global tournament.
Abdel Aal, however, believes that their iconic run has filled them with a sense of arrogance that will lead to them falling short of their AFCON objective.
"The players of the Moroccan national team were afflicted with a state of arrogance and arrogance after the great achievement in the last World Cup in Qatar and obtaining fourth place," the former Pharaohs player said per Egyptian outlet Al Wafd.
"I expect that the Atlas Lions will not reach far in the current African Nations Championship, and will follow the path of the Algerian team in the last African Nations Championship 2021, which was held in Cameroon, after the Sahara Warriors suffered from a state of overconfidence after winning the title in 2019," he added.
With his side set to butt heads with DR Congo, Atlas Lions head coach Walid Regragui admitted, per Badil, that their path to the final is still long and that it "will not be easy".
The nations are scheduled to take on one another this Sunday, and Leopards boss Sebastien Desabre revealed that he and his team are heading into the fixture with the intention of grabbing all three points.
“We will prepare well for the Moroccan national team,” he said per Analkhabar, and added: “We will try to be more effective in attack.”
“Of course, we will remain as brave as we were against Zambia. The meeting will not be final. There are still two finals ahead of us.
“Our ambition is to win the next two matches.
”I hope our attackers will be more effective.”
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