Denis Opudo
Morrocco is the host of 2018 African National Championship (CHAN). The competition started on 13th January. The upcoming African talents will showcase their talents during the competition. The competition will run until 14th February. The competition is only for the African local players who play in the domestic leagues. The first one took place in Cote d’Ivoire in 2009 with eight teams taking part. The competition later on expanded to 16 twice the initial number. This took place in the last phase in 2016 held in Rwanda.
The opening match took place in Casablanca. This is Morocco’s economic bedrock. The opening match was between the host and Mauritania. Dubbed as a derby between Arab and northwest Africa it will have many spectators. The last time the two team’s meat morocco emerged with a win of 4 goals to two. This was during a friendly match. In the last competition, Morocco performed poorly. They left in the group stages and the better performance was back in 2014. In 2014 the team went up to the quarterfinals. The team is looking forward to performing more than that.
This is the best squad to be produced by the country. Their six stars come from Wydad Casablanca team. Wydad Casablanca team is the winners of 2017 CAF Champions League. The other six are from Raja who is the city’s main rivals. Three of their players are from 2017 CAF Confederation Cup semi-finalists FUS Rabat. The hosts are in Group A alongside Mauritius, Sudan, and Guinea.
Group B consists of Cote d’Ivoire, Zambia, Uganda, and Namibia. Group C has Nigeria, Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea and Libya. Libya is the 2014 champions. Equatorial Guinea is participating for the first time. Group D has Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon, Burkina Faso and Angola. The Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology will be used in Africa for the first time.
VAR will be used in the quarterfinals. The technology allows the off-field match officials in game-changing instances. This includes cases of mistaken identities, goals, penalty kicks and straight bookings. DR Congo is the record holders having won it in 2009 and 2016. The country will not take part in this year’s tournament. This is after elimination by Congo Brazzaville in qualifying.
Three legends are the ambassadors for the African Nations Championship (CHAN) Morocco 2018. They include Nourredine Naybet (Morocco), Robert Kidiaba (DR Congo) and Adel Chedli (Tunisia). Naybet enjoyed a successful spell with Wydad Casablanca both and continentally. He won the 1992 CAF Champions League, before leaving for a successful career in Europe. Kidiaba is amongst the winners of the first edition with DR Congo. He got a global recognition with TP Mazembe. Chendi becomes the first and the only player to win both CHAN and African Cup of Nations titles.
