Achraf Hakimi therefore did as well as his PSG teammates Idrissa Gana Gueye and Abdou Diallo a few hours earlier. The latter began their CAN with a complicated but welcome success with Senegal against Zimbabwe (1-0) in added time. Hakimi’s Morocco also defeated their first opponent, Ghana by winning by the same score on the Yaoundé lawn.
But the Moroccans waited a little shorter than the Senegalese since Angevin Sofiane Boutal scored the only goal of the game in the 82nd minute. The Moroccan striker pivoted a ball that was trailing in the area following a series of scrambles. The Ghanaian goalkeeper could not do anything with his strike. This is only… Boufal’s second goal in the Moroccan selection. “I told him: it is you who will win us this match,” said the Bosnian coach of Morocco, Vahid Halilhodzic, at a press conference. Sofiane Boufal, I had a lot of discussions with him, I made him responsible for his talent. (…) He hasn’t done much for four years in the national team, and there he scored two goals in two games. “
On paper, the poster was attractive but it resulted in a relatively poor game in scoring chances. The Ghana of brothers André and Jordan Ayew did not deserve to win. And it is after all fair that Sofiane Boufal, the most prominent Moroccan, scored the only goal of the match. Friday Morocco will have the opportunity to confirm this victory by facing a team even more within its reach, the Comoros.
