Article Directory
Morocco's Big Night: A Triumph, or Just Good PR?
Alright, let's talk about the CAF Awards in Rabat. Morocco just swept the damn thing, didn't they? Achraf Hakimi, 27 years old, finally gets his African Footballer of the Year: Achraf Hakimi and Ghizlane Chebbak win 2025 awards crown for 2025. And Ghizlane Chebbak? She snagged the women's prize, supposedly "surprisingly" beating out Nigeria's Rasheedat Ajibade. My immediate thought? Convenient. Call me cynical—I don't care—but when the host nation suddenly becomes the darling of every major award, you gotta squint a little, right? It's like when Hollywood gives all the Oscars to the movie that everyone thinks should win, even if it wasn't the best. Or, maybe I'm just bitter because my team never wins anything.
The Defender's Crown (and My Skepticism)
Morocco football star Hakimi named African Footballer of the Year. Hakimi's win, offcourse, is being hailed as this monumental moment. First Moroccan since '98, first defender since '73. Fifty-two years! That's a hell of a stat. And yeah, the guy had a monstrous year with PSG: Champions League, Ligue 1, Coupe de France, UEFA Super Cup. I'm not gonna lie, that's a resume that makes most strikers blush. He’s a beast on the right flank, a genuine game-changer. But let's be real, this isn't just about talent. No, scratch that—it's never just about talent when these awards roll around. Hakimi missed out in 2023 and 2024. What changed this year, besides the awards being held in his home country, Morocco? Are we suddenly saying his 2025 was that much better than Salah's or Osimhen's, who've been consistently lighting up Europe for years?
He said, and I quote, "This trophy is not just for me, but all the strong men and women who have dreams of being a footballer in Africa." Cue the violins. It's a nice sentiment, sure, the kind of boilerplate you hear from every athlete holding a shiny new trophy. But it feels a bit like reading the mission statement on a tech startup's website—all lofty ideals, not much substance. What about the actual mechanics? The panel of "experts"—Caf's technical committee, media pros, players, coaches. Do they really look past the flash and the narrative? Or are they swayed by the buzz, the home crowd, the sheer momentum of a nation on the rise in football? I mean, come on. We're talking about the same organization that sometimes feels like it's running on a 1990s dial-up connection. It's a popularity contest wrapped in a veneer of objective analysis, and honestly... who's really checking the fine print on these things?
The "Surprise" and the Sweep
Then there's Ghizlane Chebbak. Morocco's captain, playing in Saudi Arabia, takes the women's prize. The fact sheets even call it a "surprise," mentioning she "surprisingly" beat Nigeria's Rasheedat Ajibade and her own teammate Sanaa Mssoudy. A surprise? In an awards ceremony hosted in your own capital, Rabat, where your country is having a banner night? This ain't rocket science, folks. When the narrative is "Morocco rising," every win, every trophy, every moment of glory just feeds into that. It's not to diminish her achievement—I don't know enough about women's football to definitively say she didn't deserve it—but the optics are, well, optics.
It wasn't just Hakimi and Chebbak either. Yassine Bounou, the Al-Hilal goalie, grabbed Goalkeeper of the Year. Morocco was just crushing it. Even Bubista from Cape Verde, who led his tiny island nation to a World Cup debut, got Coach of the Year. Which, okay, that one feels genuinely earned. But the whole affair in Casablanca—or rather, Rabat—it just paints a picture. A picture of a nation flexing its footballing muscle, not just on the field but in the administrative halls too. It's like watching a well-oiled machine, where every cog is perfectly aligned to produce a certain outcome. You can almost hear the celebratory fireworks echoing from Marrakech all the way to Tangier. Then again, maybe I'm just a cynic who can't enjoy anything. Maybe it was just genuinely Morocco's time.