AROUND 130 miles separate the cities of Farkhan, Morocco, and Malaga, Spain. That’s half of the distance from Malaga and the Spanish capital Madrid, where the star of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations and its leading scorer, Brahim Diaz, currently plays his club football for Real.

It illustrates the closeness of the southern tip of Spain and the northern tip of Africa, which is only around nine miles in a straight line at the closest point near Tangier and Tarifa. 

It’s a closeness that has led to football’s latest high-profile international journey, and a player’s search for an identity and sense of belonging, which has been found at this edition of Afcon.

A ferry route across the Alboran Sea links Malaga and Farkhana, via the nearby city of Melilla, an autonomous city of Spain on the North African coast, connecting Europe to Africa and vice versa. Diaz’s father, Sufiel Abdelkader Mohand, was born in Farkhana before moving to Malaga, where his son Brahim was born and played in the youth teams for Malaga CF.

It is this link that has seen Brahim Abdelkader Diaz, to give the 26-year-old his full name, emerge as one of the stars of African football.

Within the space of a few weeks, a player who has played for high-profile clubs Real Madrid, AC Milan, and Manchester City, and for a world-renowned youth national team setup in Spain, is now primarily known for being Moroccan, and one of the best players in African football.

Morocco’s manager, Walid Regragui, believes his star player is capable of even more.

“He had an amazing start to the competition, scoring in every game, but what I am happy about with Brahim is not only that he scores, he changed his mentality,” Regragui said after the quarter-final win against Cameroon. 

“Tonight, what he did, he’s running a lot, he’s fighting, he keeps the ball, and it sends a message to his teammates. When you see the best players running like this, it’s very important for team spirit.

“He can be the best player in the world if he wants. I’m very happy with him, and I want to congratulate him because now he understands what it is to have Moroccan blood, to help, to fight, and to give everything you have.”

The 2025 Afcon (known as the 2025 tournament as it was originally planned to take place in the summer but was moved to accommodate Fifa’s Club World Cup) concludes on Sunday when Diaz’s Morocco face Senegal in Rabat. 

The final in Morocco’s capital city reflects a tournament in which the best teams on paper have proved as much on the pitch, at least in terms of results and progress. 

Senegal and Morocco were the highest-ranked nations at the beginning of the tournament, and now meet in the final. If this game continues the trend, Morocco will win their first Afcon since 1976.

The intrigue of Afcon often comes from its upsets and unpredictability, but for this particular edition, it has come from the top teams’ top players playing well and propelling their nations forward.

For Senegal, it has been the familiar name of Sadio Mane, whose goal against Egypt in an otherwise tense and cagey semi-final gave the West Africans a deserved win. 

Pape Thiaw’s side boast attacking threats up there with some of the best in the tournament, especially in Mane, who has two goals and three assists, but also have a decent defence to go with it, having conceded only twice in six games.

Morocco has bettered that and are yet to concede a goal in open play, with the only goal against them being a penalty scored by Mali’s Lassine Sinayoko in the group stage.

The hosts were expected to progress in their semi-final against Nigeria, but it was not as easy a task as it might have looked on paper against a Nigeria team who, despite failing to qualify for the World Cup, had been one of the standout teams of the tournament to that point.

Nigeria’s attack seemed to have run out of gas in this semi and couldn’t breach that Moroccan defence, but an excellent performance from Fulham centre-back Calvin Bassey helped the Super Eagles hold on to a 0-0 draw through 90 minutes and extra time, but they were eventually beaten on penalties by the tournament favourites.

Despite impressive results in recent years, and perhaps because of them, anything less than a win will be seen as a failure for Morocco. 

Their only defeats since the 2022 World Cup came at the 2022 World Cup itself, in the semi-final against France and in the third-place game against Croatia and losses against South Africa in 2023 Afcon qualifying and the last 16 of Afcon 2023 itself. 

This run has marked Morocco out not only as one of the best teams in Africa, but also as one of the best in the world. They are not far off entering the top 10 of Fifa’s rankings.

Their manager believes they now have a player in Diaz, who has the potential to be the best in the world, too. He already has Premier League, Italian Serie A and Spanish La Liga titles to his name, plus a Champions League winner’s medal with Madrid, but winning Afcon as a key player in the team would top all of that.