Women’s Africa Cup of Nations Preview 2 July 2022.
Morocco vs Burkina Faso
The hosts will kick-off the 12th edition of the TotalEnergies Womens Africa Cup of Nations in Group A against Burkina Faso in Rabat at 22h30 in Morocco.
The Atlas Lionesse will be on home soil and they look sharp to use that to thei advantage. The major match they played against Cameroon where they won 1-0 in the Aisha Buhari Cup. This is their first WAFCON appearance since the year 2000 and have since failed to progress passed the first round
Burkina Faso played their first women’s international in 2007 against Niger and this will be thier debut appearance at the Women’s Cup of Nations. In their qualifying stages they played all their cards and shown some character beating Benin 5-2 on aggregate they went passed Guinea-Bissau. The side lack overseas based players.
This is the first time that two women’s team of Morocco and Burkina Faso have met in an official competition. They have faced each other in a friendly game in October 2017 in Sale and the match ended in a draw.
‘’ The event is important for the players and the country, but the whole thing is not to put negative pressure on the players. Personally, I did not speak about the match to my players and the goal is to make this pressure positive, ‘’ Reynald Pedros said at the per-match press conference.
The coach of the Stallions, Sawadogo has said his primary objective is to ‘’seduce the public and the fans and prove that women also know how to play football,’’ Sawadogo know s that Moroccan women played good football. He concluded that they will play their qualities and that they will bleed to win
The last time the Continental tournament was staged it was 2018 and it has been put on hold because of Covid-19 and this year’s showpiece will also serve as an African qualifiers for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Four teams in the semi finals will book their spots while the other teams will go on and play playoffs. It should be noted that the WAFCON has 12 teams from 8 teams.