AFCON 2025: 'Fired up' Salah, favourites and surprise packages
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Excitement is building for the start of Africa Cup of Nations this weekend.
The tournament kicks off this Sunday, 21st December and runs until the final on Sunday, 18th January.
So will hosts and favourites Morocco deliver? Can reigning champions Ivory Coast defend their crown? Will 'fired up' Salah give Egypt the edge? And who are the key players to keep an eye on?
Ayo Akinwolere is joined by Jay Harris and Simon Hughes to tell you everything you need to know ahead of AFCON 2025.
Plus, former Ghana manager Chris Hughton drops in to give the lowdown on what it’s actually like to manage at AFCON.
Host: Ayo Akinwolere
Guests: Jay Harris, Simon Hughes, Chris Hughton
Executive Producer: Abi Paterson
Producers: Mike Stavrou, Paul Illife
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic FC. |
| 0:04.9 | Welcome to the Athletic FFC podcast with me, Ayur Akimwaleri. |
| 0:09.8 | Excitement is building for the start of Africa Cup of Nations this weekend. |
| 0:14.7 | So, we'll hosts and favourites Morocco deliver. |
| 0:17.7 | Can running champions Ivory Coast defend their their crown and who are the key players to |
| 0:22.9 | keep an eye on well we're going to tell you everything you need to know ahead of afcon 2025 all right |
| 0:32.1 | in with us today we've got j harris we've also got si hughes as well And both of you are heading out to Afcon. It's |
| 0:38.5 | going to be super, super interesting. Jay, for the people listening, just break it down very quickly. |
| 0:43.8 | When does it start and what the tournament entails? It's the 35th edition of Afcon. It's being |
| 0:50.5 | held in Morocco, as you mentioned. nine stadiums across six different cities. |
| 0:54.9 | It starts on Sunday with Morocco against Comoros. |
| 0:58.0 | I think it's the, Siam might know this, the Prince Malay-Aabdala Stadium in Rabat, which I think is 68,000-seater. |
| 1:05.8 | And one tiny bit of information, which I think is important for listeners, is that it should have been |
| 1:10.9 | held in the summer. Morocco wanted to host it in the summer, but there was this little tournament |
| 1:15.5 | called the Club World Cup, which got in the way, and that's a conversation for another day. |
| 1:20.5 | But there you go. Yeah, definitely a conversation for another day, and I want to talk more about |
| 1:24.7 | that in terms of Afcon trying to battle with European |
| 1:27.7 | supremacy in many respects. |
| 1:29.3 | Cy, well, you're taking a very interesting route coming into this and you're not actually |
| 1:33.2 | getting on a plane like most of the people, are you? |
| 1:35.0 | Well, I'm getting on a plane, but I'm not flying to Morocco. |
| 1:38.4 | So it was my idea instead to fly to Gibraltar and then get the ferry from Tarifa to Tangier because it is, you know, |
... |
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