Morocco vs Comoros prediction: AFRICA: Africa Cup of Nations betting tips on match 2025-12-20 19:00.
[p]The wait is almost over as the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) kicks off with hosts and tournament favourites Morocco launching their bid for the title against unfancied Comoros.[/p]
[p]Match News and Current Form[/p]
[p]Morocco are hosting the tournament for the first time since 1988, and given the way they breezed through their AFCON qualifying group with a perfect record (W6), they are widely tipped for glory here. The Atlas Lions famously reached the World Cup semi-finals in 2022 and are unbeaten since August (W16, D1), a run which helped them win the Arab Cup on Thursday, while they remarkably haven’t lost a competitive international on home soil since 2009! Yet history is not completely on their side as they’ve only won this competition once before, way back in 1976, and they’ll be well aware that until Ivory Coast’s win in the last tournament, no side hosting or co-hosting had even made the final since Egypt in 2006.[/p]
[p]Comoros arrive unburdened by any such expectations as they prepare for just their second AFCON appearance having bowed out at the round of 16 in the 2021 finals (W1, L3). The Coelacanths are expected to struggle having lost all three of their group matches in the recent Arab Cup in Qatar and they haven’t won any of their last six competitive games inside 90 minutes (D1, L5). One small crumb of comfort is that their last such victory on foreign soil came in Morocco when they beat Central African Republic in a World Cup qualifier in September.[/p]
[p]Head-to-Head History[/p]
[p]Morocco are unbeaten across all four previous meetings (W3, D1), including an AFCON group stage encounter in January 2022 (W 2-0).[/p]
[p]Hot Stats and Streaks[/p]
[p]Each of the last three tournaments opened with the hosts winning the curtain-raiser.[/p]
[p]Morocco have won each of their last eight fixtures on home soil without conceding.[/p]
[p]Comoros’ last five games produced over 2.5 goals.[/p]
[p]Comoros conceded first in each of their last six fixtures on foreign soil.[/p]
[p]Key Players to Watch and Missing Players[/p]
[p]Oussama Tannane opened the scoring from inside his own half for Morocco against Jordan on Thursday (W 3-2 after extra time) and assisted twice in his country’s 3-1 win over Comoros earlier this month. Comoros’ Housseine Zakouani has four goal contributions across his last six appearances for club and country (G2, A2).[/p]
[p]Karim El Berkaoui was withdrawn before the 20th minute of the Arab Cup final with an injury so Morocco will be monitoring him closely, while Comoros do not appear to have any fresh pre-tournament injury concerns.[/p]
[p]For all the latest team news, please check the Flashscore match centre.[/p]
[p]Betting Analysis[/p]
[p]Morocco are huge favourites and understandably so given their recent record, so our tip is to back them to win by a -2 handicap.[/p]
[p][i]Author: John Pennington[/i][/p]