Senegal 1-0 Morocco: Pape Gueye hits Afcon final winner in extra time against hosts after chaotic scenes over disputed penalty – live reaction | Africa Cup of Nations 2025
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Key events
Well, that escalated slowly. It’s time to wrap things up but we’ll have news of the fallout in the next few days. For now, I’ll leave you with Jonathan Wilson’s report. Goodnight.
The trophy is presented to Kalidou Koulibaly, the captain who missed tonight’s suspension. He gives it to Sadio Mane, who lifts it skyward and roars in triumph. Senegal are the champions of Africa again!
Senegal are the first team since 2013 – and the first of the 24-team era – to win the Africa Cup of Nations without needing a penalty shootout.
Now it’s time for the winners. Senegal’s walk-off may have been unedifying at best, but on the field they were beyond reproach. They were Morocco’s equals throughout the game, despite the overbearing pressure that comes with facing the hosts in a final, and Pape Gueye’s winning goal was one for the books.
The Morocco players are collecting their runners-up medals. With the obvious exceptions of Brazil at the World Cup in 1950 and 2014, it’s hard to think of many host campaigns that have ended as gruesomely as this.
It’ll be a long time before they make sense of it all, if they ever do.
A dead-eyed Brahim Diaz has just been presented with the golden boot by Gianni Infantino. He scored five goals, one more than Mo Salah and Victor Osimhen. But it’s the sixth goal, the one he didn’t score, that everyone will remember.
When the dust finally settles on this game, probably in about May 2028, this Senegal team will be recognised as one of the best in African football history. As well as einning the Africa Cup of Nations in 2021 and 2025, they lost the 2019 final to Algeria and were beaten on penalties by the eventual winners Ivory Coast in 2023.
And if all that’s not enough, they produce a flounce for the ages.
Jonathan Wilson’s match report
This had been, by general agreement, the most predictable, least dramatic Cup of Nations in living memory. And that was true, until eight minutes into injury time in the final, when a video assistant referee decision contrived to produce perhaps the most ludicrous finale to any major final in history. Senegal won it, but that is a tiny detail in the denouement that erupted. There was a walk-off in protest, a missed Panenka and a brilliant winning goal from Pape Gueye.
And the winner is…
“I’m desperately leafing through my old university notes on ethics and morality to see if I can find any way of working out who the moral victor here is, if there is one,” writes Charles Antaki. “I don’t think they played much football in Plato’s time, or Kant’s, and Russell didn’t have much to say about ethics anyway. I dropped the philosophy modules after that, so that has been no help at all. Maybe the ‘unholy’ in ‘unholy mess’ gives us a clue?”
I’m never offering an opinion on anything again but you know yourself out.
It sounds like Sadio Mane and also El-Hadji Diouf were key figures in the Senegal players returning to the pitch. I’m sure we’ll get chapter and verse in the next few days.
“Diaz’s miss makes me think of Doug Sanders, who missed a two foot putt to beat Jack Nicklaus and win the Open,” writes Matt Emerson. “He said:
… they still ask me if I ever think about that putt I missed to win the 1970 Open at St. Andrews. I tell them that sometimes it doesn’t cross my mind for a full five minutes.
Erm, did that just happen?
“Now I really can’t wait for Scotland v Morocco at the World Cup,” writes Simon McMahon. “A football mad, expectant nation with a sense of burning injustice fuelled by years of hurt and national embarrassment on the big stage. Plus Morocco. It’ll be epic.”
The TL;DR of a crazy match
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90+2 min Senegal’s Ismaila Sarr has a goal controversially disallowed
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90+8 min After a long review, Morocco are awarded a hugely controversial penalty for a challenge by El Hadji Malick Diouf on Brahim Diaz, sparking scenes of utter chaos.
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90+12 min The Senegal manager Pape Thiaw tells his players to leave the pitch.
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90+17 min Half the Senegal team walk down the tunnel.
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90+21 min The missing Senegal players, including the goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, return to the field.
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90+24 min Diaz’s Andrex-soft Panenka is saved by Mendy, the last kick of normal time.
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94 min Pape Gueye smashes Senegal in front.
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108 min Nayif Aguerd’s header hits the crossbar, the closest Morocco would come to an equaliser.
Several players are face down on the pitch in tears – and that’s just the winners. Senegal have stunned the hosts Morocco, whose fifty years of hurt just got even more painful – in a football context, unimaginably painful.
Full time: Senegal 1-0 Morocco
After a final like no other in football history, Senegal are champions of Africa for the second time!
120+3 min Senegal have the ball in the Morocco half. There are seconds remaining.
120+1 min Three minutes of added time. “I don’t know what’s more entertaining,” writes Rebekah Voss, “the antics on the pitch or the merry little war that Ricky is waging.”
120 min Ezzalzouli’s cross is too close to Mendy. Morocco are almost out of time.
119 min “Should the Senegalese players who left the pitch not been given yellow cards (meaning some would have picked up their second of the match)?” asks Matthew Charlesworth.
Hmm, you might be right. We certainly haven’t heard the end of that utter mess.
118 min Senegal have had a really good five minutes, most of it in the Morocco half.
117 min “Don’t listen to the haters, Rob,” says Ian Copestake. “You’re not that pathetic.”
116 min That corner leads to another, which is headed away as far as Idrissa Gueye. He swishes a shot from 25 yards that goes wide of the far post. Lovely strike though.
116 min “Peace prize should go to Mane,” writes Ricky. “He made sure your beloved Morocco took the L today.”
Do you really think I’m a Morocco fan, Ricky? Or are you just being a complete [redacted]?
115 min An awkward long-range shot from Pape Gueye is pushed up in the air and behind for a corner by Bono.
114 min Mamadou Sarr is booked for something or other. This isn’t no time for details. I think En-Nesyri was booked a couple of minutes ago as well.
113 min “I’m about 60 per cent with Ricky,” writes David Howell. “The disallowed goal – especially the premature whistle – was ludicrous. The penalty was just as Rob called it – Diaz went looking for a foul, was given something to work with, and sold it shamelessly.
“With that said, I don’t blame Senegal for walking off – they probably felt the game had a predetermined outcome at that point so why should they pretend otherwise? And now they’ve proven otherwise, and I think that’s the loudest I’ve cheered a goal for anyone in a long, long time.”
112 min I did Ndiaye a disservice – it was actually an astonishing piece of goalkeeping from Bounou. Having already made an outrageous reaction save from Ndiaye’s first shot, he scrambled across and slapped the ball against Ndiaye’s foot, which is why it ricocheted wide rather than into the net.
111 min: What a miss by Cherif Ndiaye!
Senegal should be 2-0 up. Sarr’s excellent ball finds Ndiaye, whose low shot is wonderfully saved to his right by Bounou. The ball runs loose in front of an open goal and Ndiaye somehow sweeps it wide.
110 min It’s also pouring down in Rabat, adding to the theatre of this crazy final. Morocco have been all over Senegal since the resumption.
109 min That was such a fine effort from Aguerd, who towered over Mamadou Sarr and redirected the corner with a fierce twist of the neck.
108 min: Aguerd hits the bar!
Another corner for Morocco on the right. Akhomach’s excellent inswinger is met by the leaping Aguerd, who slams a header against the bar from six yards! There’s a brief game of pinball before Senegal get the ball away.
108 min “And the Fifa Peace Prize goes to… Ricky!!!” writes Peter Oh.
107 min A Morocco corner is half cleared to El Yamiq, who shoots well wide from the edge of the area.
106 min They’re back under way.
Senegal substitution Ismail Jakobs replace El Hadji Malick Diouf, the man who thought he’d lost the final.
“That was the worst Panenka since Yann Kermogant in the playoffs for Leicester,” writes Graham Randall. “Somewhere, somebody is writing a song about Brahim Diaz.”
NB: link contains adult language. I think, it’s been a while. Thirteen years!
Half time in extra time: Senegal 1-0 Morocco
Senegal are 15 minutes away from tainted glory thanks to a spectacular goal from Pape Gueye.
105+1 min “Honestly, this has to be the worst coverage of any football I’ve ever seen,” writes Ricky. “Senegal are well within their rights to protest the refereeing. It’s scandalous. For you to justify the refereeing is embarrassing. Senegal’s goal should have stood and for it to not get reviewed is embarrassing.
“Also in your face. The penalty was pathetic and Rob you’re also pathetic.”
If you enjoy our coverage as much as Ricky, you know what to do.
105 min: What a block by Hakimi! The teenager Mbaye explodes past three Moroccan defenders, surges into the area and drives a shot that is crucially blocked by his PSG teammate Hakimi. That would have been an outrageous goal.
104 min: Chance for Morocco Ezzalzouli’s cross from the left bounces up at En-Nesyri, who stoops to head wide of the near post. It was a decent but awkward chance because the ball was almost behind him when he maded contact.
103 min “Imagine going from player of the tournament to being known for the worst penalty ever taken,” writes Saurav Samaddar. “Oh Brahim!”
The poor guy looked totally broken. That, almost certainly, will define his career.
102 min This time Mendy is legitimately flattened by Igamane, who also stays down after their collision. It was a short backpass which Mendy cleared a split-second before Igamane arrived on the scene.
100 min Mendy dives bravely in front of En-Nesyri to claim a header back across goal, then uses the resulting contact with En-Nesyri to waste 30 seconds.
99 min I know it’s only a game, but try telling that to Brahim Diaz. Imagine his internal monologue right now; I’d imagine Peep Show is a feelgood comedy by comparison.
That goal, incidentally, was the first Morocco have conceded from open play in the tournament.
97 min: Morocco substitutions That’s Brahim Diaz’s last touch. He and Noussair Mazraoui have been replaced by Hamza Igamane and Ilias Akhomach.
