Nigeria 0-0 Morocco (aet, 2-4 pens): Bounou´s penalty heroics send AFCON hosts into the final

Morocco reached their first Africa Cup of Nations final since 2004 as Yassine Bounou’s penalty heroics sealed a 4-2 shoot-out win over Nigeria after a 0-0 semi-final draw.

Bounou denied Samuel Chukwueze and Bruno Onyemaechi, with Youssef En-Nesyri scoring the deciding penalty to set up a date with Senegal in the showpiece match.

Ademola Lookman had the first shot on target in the 14th minute but saw his strike repelled by Bounou as both teams struggled to find their groove in the early exchanges.

Morocco then found themselves in the ascendency but struggled to test Stanley Nwabali, though Ismael Saibari stung the palms of the Nigeria goalkeeper just before half-time.

Nwabali was again on hand to keep Morocco at bay as he sprung to his left to deny Abde Ezzalzouli seven minutes after the restart, but both sides continued to toil in the final third.

And as extra time got underway, Achraf Hakimi’s corner to the back post picked out Nayef Aguerd, but the former West Ham defender could only head against the woodwork.

Neil El Aynaoui’s stinging volley late in the second period of extra time was the closest either side came, with a shoot-out required in front of a nervy crowd.

After both sides made perfect starts, Morocco were the first to blink as Hamza Igamane’s spot-kick was saved by Nwabali, though Chukwueze could not take advantage as Bounou guessed correctly to save his tame effort to the left side of the goal.

The next three penalties found the net but Onyemaechi saw his kick thwarted by Bounou in unorthodox fashion, after the goalkeeper stepped far to his left, allowing En-Nesyri to step up and send his side to the showpiece match this Sunday.

Data Debrief: Morocco overcome penalty hoodoo at AFCON

Many Morocco fans may not have been optimistic seeing the game go to penalties, as among teams that had played two or more shoot-outs at AFCON, Morocco were one of the nations that had never qualified in this manner (0/2).

However, they got themselves over the line here, making it third time lucky after losing their first two AFCON shoot-outs, 3-4 to Algeria in 1988 and 1-4 to Benin in 2019.

This is the second consecutive edition in which the host country has reached the final of AFCON (Ivory Coast in 2023 and Morocco in 2025), after they failed to do so in the previous eight editions, but there was little quality on show in the final third.

Morocco registered an expected goals (xG) total of 0.8 from their 16 shots, five of which were on target. Nigeria, meanwhile, attempted only two shots with an xG tally of 0.05, their lowest tally in an AFCON match since Opta began analysing the competition in 2010.