Expectation awaits in-form Morocco in Afcon opener

Hosts Morocco will kick off the 2022 Women’s Africa Cup of Nations when they tackle Burkina Faso in a group A clash in Rabat on Saturday night (kick-off 22h30) with high hopes of securing a first-ever place at the Fifa Women’s World Cup next year.

Morocco, who have not appeared at the continental finals since 2000, have been in excellent form over the past year, with just a single defeat in 11 games since September coming in a 3-0 friendly loss to Spain.

In that time, they have beaten continental heavyweights Cameroon and Ghana, and most recently sealed draws with Zambia (1-1) and Ivory Coast (0-0).

It is a huge improvement for a team that had battled on the international stage prior to that and rarely won matches.

That turnaround in fortunes has been masterminded by former France international Reynald Pedros, who was previously in charge of the highly-successful Lyon women’s team. He won two Uefa Women’s Champions League titles with them.

In order to qualify automatically for the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, Pedros needs to lead his side to the semifinals. If they fall at the quarterfinal stage, they will face off against an opponent to be included in the inter-continental playoffs.

That will be a tough road, and he will know it will be much simpler just to get the job done on home soil.

“We've been preparing for the CAN for almost a month now, so I would say that we can't wait to be there, that the players are ready,” Pedros told reporters.

“It is a very important event for the players, for the country, but you must not play the event before playing it, not to put negative pressure on the players, and you simply have to work on the aspects where we have been failing in the preparation matches.

“The fact that it is a CAN at home, the first participation for the players, it is, of course, an important goal and additional pressure, but again this pressure must be positive, this pressure must take us forward and make us do things we did not imagine we could do.”

Debutants Burkina Faso showed good form in the qualifiers, seeing off Benin 5-2 on aggregate and Guinea-Bissau 7-0.

But those are their only matches in the last nine months and they are desperately short of game time going into the competition.

"We are here to participate, we have made a tactical preparation so that the opening match is of good quality. We hope for victory but otherwise, we will have to play well,” Burkinabe coach Pascal Sawadogo says.

"We know that Morocco has played a lot of international matches to prepare. Our strength is the mental side. This is our first international competition, but it's not the first time we play football.

"A football match without pressure is not a match. We are aware of the work that awaits us. We want a minimum level to play. There are no injured players, everyone is at the top level to play."

The two teams played a friendly match in 2017 that ended 1-1.