That AFCON Feeling: Dispatches from Morocco
Football evokes the full gamut of emotions and creates powerful memories. Our man in Marrakesh writes of an adventure that was chaotic, stressful and utterly life-affirming
Chris Marshall writes online human-interest photographic essays. Below is his report from six days he spent in Morocco taking in three games in two cities as the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations strove to entertain the world.
By Chris Marshall
DISPATCH ONE: AGADIR — Cameroon 1–0 Gabon
The bus leaves Agadir for the match venue on the city’s outskirts just 50 minutes before kick-off. A delay in departure is explained simply as, “This is the way.” We know what’s about to come.
There is a thrill to seeing new floodlights emerge for the first time. The ruby-red beacons on each corner of the Stade Adrar’s brutalist structure are no different, although the adrenaline spike soon flatlines as, with the bus unable to toot, rev and bruise its way towards its designated space the handful of people on board are dumped at a roundabout. The driver waves hands in a general direction.
It’s been raining all day so there is relief that the downpours have ceased. Not that it has helped the four Cameroonian brothers struggling at the same spot we disembarked, their banged-up Honda well and truly stuck in the mud. Green shirts now splattered red-brown.
The walk apparently takes 35 minutes. We have 20 to make it in time for kick-off. Perspiration soon replaces precipitation as jackets and jumpers are balled into hands.
Despite the rush, the chaos, the complete lack of structure to any part of this matchday, it’s hard not to get sucked in. The energy simmers, but never feels dangerous, even as the surge past redundant turnstiles carries you in. There is Gabonese song and Cameroonian colour, but the red and green of Morocco is never far away. Free entry for locals swells the throng.
The game is over almost as soon as we arrive. A single goal enough in a contest that rarely bursts into quality. Gabon simply cannot cross a ball. Half-time and the Laughing Cow encourages you to dance; people do. It’s fun. Something to do inside a stadium footprint lacking the gentrification big football has made you accustomed to.
Full-time. Back into the darkness. Tired, we find the bus back to the beach, by luck more than anything else. Despite Morocco’s relentless noise, the sound of organisational communication is absent.
The first of several trip decompressions begins. As opening impressions go, AFCON has certainly made one. A chaotic, intoxicating and sometimes infuriating evening is winding down, but it feels there is still much more to come. Despite it all, I’m ready for the next rush.
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DISPATCH TWO: THE CLIMB — Egypt 1–0 South Africa
Like lemmings they climb. It’s Boxing Day and the spectacle of these scurrying ascents are more entertaining than any rummage through the sales.
Daylight provides a new perspective on a venue destined to host the World Cup in 2030. We bustle along cavernous new roads flanked by plastic-wrapped buildings ready to serve, rows of saplings yet to take root and rubble yet to be smoothed. It’s a project incomplete.
The bus leaves earlier this time but somehow there is still a rush. Again, entry for locals is free post kick-off but that doesn’t stop the scramble up the stadium’s perimeter. Get caught and back down you go.
The difference in attendance from kick-off to half-time is captivating and I easily follow the stadium’s communal evolution from our spot in the nosebleeds.
On the pitch, the football King Mo’s Egypt and Bafana Bafana serve up is attritional and a bit tetchy, although the former does dink the only goal home from the spot. There’s a red card — not sure why, it’s hard to follow the action at this range — and the following rammy is entertaining enough.
As the winter sun beats down, the youths scale ever higher. Dangling legs and pride-filled silhouettes atop the stadium structure are backdropped by the Atlas Mountains. The pursuit of the perfect view is never-ending.
There’s food this time; a boy sells lollipops for pennies from a Perspex jar liberated from your Granny’s favourite sweet shop and there’s sandwiches too, ten dirhams for a roll filled with sardines, olives and rice. I enjoy it as we watch the second half, my forehead slowly reddening.
The mood is light as we spill back onto the slow road to the city. We see the sandwich seller, empty floral tray under his arm, and a beautiful dusk adds to the desert tones.
I spot a flag we’d seen before. A quick eSIM activation tells me it represents the Berber people, the same people we’d spent Christmas Day with amongst Saharan dunes on the Atlantic coast.
Morocco play later and as the hubbub starts to calm it’s hard not to think that their participation is the reason for our latest transport delay. Eventually our exit arrives, and so the search for a screen to watch the hosts begins.
DISPATCH THREE: MARRAKESH — Cote d’Ivoire 1–1 Cameroon
The noise of Marrakesh is relentless. A ten-minute walk through the city’s medina an overstimulation that modern Glasgow life does not prepare you for.
Don’t look down. Don’t switch off from the world or put the ear buds in. One false move and any one of car, bike, cart, tuk-tuk or donkey will come crashing into you. A tiring state of high alert, but boy does it make you feel alive.
Ahead of our final game, a cool 11km outside the city, we undertook that most culturally important task of having a pint in the (not-so-Irish) Irish pub. It would prove a decision well made as first a Scotland shirt and then a group of groundhoppers appear with spare seats on their bus to the game to share. One transport crisis averted.
While the matches in Agadir had charm there was a feeling that we hadn’t really seen AFCON at its finest, but Marrakesh changed that.
The night prior we had watched Nigeria face Tunisia in a cafe where the working men of the city catch up. A little coffee cup replaced the pint glass in the corner of the screen. We enjoyed the game with an espresso and the familiar oohs and aahs football brings as the other patrons insisted our place was front and centre.
At the Grande Stade the experiences I had hoped for continue. A festival of noise and colour. The stands bubbling with west African rhythm, Zoom calls to family back home in Abidjan and Yaoundé to make collective experiences feel whole.
The Dance Cam, present at every game, must have been spinning such was the party atmosphere in a stadium that felt built for football. Cote d’Ivoire score and my new friends beside us go wild. Cameroon reply and the opposite stand begins to scream.
A ding-dong battle between two of the continent’s most storied names played with an energy that carried you along. I sang. I danced. I felt like that white guy dancing meme. It was class.
The game finished level but I felt a winner. This was the AFCON people romanticise, a relentless noise that brightened the soul, and although there was yet another long wait for buses as Moroccan infrastructure tried to kill our buzz there was no doubt that on this night, there was magic in the air.
Allez, allez, allez.
EPILOGUE: A MOROCCAN CHRISTMAS
I went to Morocco partly for the adventure, but also because I’d lost track of what I wanted to be. The wires of connection tangled and frayed as I started to live life where I often felt nothing, a forced spark quickly fading.
There are no prompts to how you feel. No algorithm to manipulate, no metric against which emotion can be measured. To be human is to be aware of the unexpected whilst being completely unprepared when those moments arrive.
It doesn’t matter whether it is a gut punch that throws you to the floor or a moment that has you soaring with teary-eyed euphoria. You can’t trick emotion. You can manage it, hide it, even fake it, but our greatest responsibility is the ability to feel, and to make other people feel.
Football makes people feel. It builds community and cultivates belonging, creates shared memories and encourages new adventure. It acts as a gateway to worlds unfamiliar and often surprises you when you least expect.
Without football I wouldn’t have gone to Morocco this Christmas and across a few chaotic, intoxicating, occasionally stressful, but often soothing days, I managed to start to rewire some connections.
In a world seemingly looking for the quickest way to skip to an ending that might not be what you hoped, it’s important not to forget that often the journey is the best part.
Find Chris’ contributions to online human-interest magazine Medium and his photographic essays on Instagram.