Morocco may need home advantage against Senegal on Sunday | OneFootball

The Africa Cup of Nations final kicks-off on Sunday with the hosts Morocco hoping to defeat Senegal on home turf in Rabat.

Morocco are a team who have been surprisingly unsuccessful at AFCON despite the nation's pedigree.

Indeed, until now the Atlas Lions have only appeared in technically one final since the tournament's start. However, that actually came after Morocco already won the tournament in 1976 back AFCON was two groups which formed into a final group of four, which Morocco topped to lift the trophy.

The closest Morocco have come since then came in 2004 when they reached the finals against Tunisia but lost 2-1 to the hosts.

Things are looking good 22 years later though. Brahim Díaz is the tournament's top goal scorer with five – something that is unlikely to change unless another player has a particularly remarkable final.

At the other end, Yassine Bounou has kept five clean sheets in the tournament – one more than Senegal's Edouard Mendy, who will be hoping to draw level on Sunday. The goalkeeper was also the penalty shoot-out hero in the semi-finals as Morocco knocked Nigeria out.

Naturally, that was a close game and this one will be too. Senegal have some fantastic attacking talent and have been far more successful in this tournament in recent years.

The Lions of Teranga were defeated finalists twice – a shoot-out loss to Cameroon in 2002 and a narrow 1-0 defeat to Algeria in 2019 – before they finally lifted the trophy in 2021.

Senegal still have many players who played in the 2021 final. A tight contest that finished goalless before Sadio Mané scored the winning penalty against Egypt.

So far, Senegal do have a better overall record at this year's competition – winning five games to get to the final instead of Morocco's four. Pape Thiaw's side have also scored more goals (12) than Sunday's opponents – although the North African side have only conceded one goal.

And while there's no player scoring for fun like Morocco's Díaz, Senegal have been spreading the goals around. Pape Gueye, Sadio Mané, Cherif Ndiaye, and Nicolas Jackson have all bagged two so far in this tournament.

This Sunday's game is likely to be another close AFCON final at the magnificent Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium where home support may well make the difference.