A packed stadium, a city suspended, a country in apnea. And suddenly Rabat was silent. She, like the whole country, who held her breath to better be able to shout her joy and pride at finally being crowned, will only be entitled to an evening of tears and regrets. The title of African champion that the entire nation imagined celebrating this Sunday at the Moulay Abdellah stadium, after fifty years of waiting, Senegal seized it unceremoniously at the end of an electric final full of twists and turns.
If only the few thousand Senegalese exploded at the final whistle, it is because the star war between Morocco and Senegal, both keen to win a second, ended in incredible confusion and a noxious atmosphere. The fault lies with a lunar end to regulation time which saw the dream final turn into a nightmare. At the heart of the debates, the referee of the match who, in the space of two minutes, whistled a foul by Seck on Hakimi just before Ismaïla Sarr found the net, then awarded immediately and at the end of added time, a penalty to Morocco for a foul by Malick Diouf on Brahim Diaz.
Anger and indignation
A decision that Congolese referee Jean-Jacques Ndala Ngambo took care to validate after consulting the VAR following protests from the Real Madrid community. But a decision which provoked the anger and indignation of the 7000 Senegalese present in the stands and of all the Lions of Teranga.
This African Cup which, failing to avoid controversies over refereeing, had until then been exemplary from a security point of view and in terms of the atmosphere in the stadiums, has this time turned upside down. Furious, the Senegalese supporters exploded with fury, attempted to invade the pitch and forced the stewards and the police to intervene with force. An interruption of a good ten minutes which degenerated on all levels since it also got heated in the press gallery between journalists from the two countries.
Et Diaz loupa sa panenka
On the pitch, the Teranga Lions pretended to leave the pitch for a moment, before making their reappearance. It was in this electric atmosphere that Brahim Diaz finally gained momentum and… missed his panenka, very poorly executed (90th + 24). A terrible blow for the Moroccans, forced to play another extension. An unexpected and sensational breath of fresh air for the Senegalese galvanized by this failure. So much so that it only took them five minutes in this overtime to turn the game around. With a surface-to-air missile from the left in the top corner of Pape Gueye, the Lions of Teranga further dampened the bad weather that had fallen on Rabat.
Under the eyes of a tearful Brahim Diaz on the sidelines, Morocco certainly managed to get back into the game, but not to equalize. Reduced to ten following the injury of Igamane who could no longer be replaced, En-Nesyri’s head narrowly missed Edouard Mendy’s goal (104th), Nayef Aguerd’s header crashed onto the bar (108th).
This final will therefore not have met the expectations of the Moroccan people, but it will remain for its scenario and its last half hour of play, its worst and its best, in the annals of the competition. Senegal, which had never scored in a CAN final, waited until the fourth to achieve it. A nasty blow from which the Moroccan brother country will have to know how to recover. A stroke of genius for the Senegalese people crowned for the second time in four years.
