Five months after leaving the Atlas Lions, Walid Regragui has returned to the night of the 2025 AFCON final, questioning the impact of Senegal’s 15-minute protest on Brahim Diaz’s missed penalty and revealing that he considered announcing his departure that same evening.
In a wide-ranging interview with Qatari channel Atheer, the former national coach also spoke about Hakim Ziyech’s return to the squad, Morocco’s pursuit of Lamine Yamal and Ayyoub Bouaddi, and a national-team tenure that included the 2022 World Cup semifinal and the 2025 AFCON campaign on home soil.
But it was the January 18 final at the Moulay Abdellah Complex—and the extraordinary stoppage preceding Diaz’s penalty—that drew some of his most detailed comments.
“What happened is simple. A final is 50-50,” Regragui said. “It’s decided by the details.”
The decisive detail came late in the game, when then-Senegal coach Pape Thiaw ordered his players off the pitch in protest at a refereeing decision.
Regragui remains critical of that decision.
“That’s not something you do in football. I told him that after the match,” he said. “He didn’t want to talk; he had taken things too far. For me, I just wanted to stay focused on football.”
‘Would Brahim have taken it the same way?’
The stoppage left Diaz waiting around 15 minutes before taking the penalty.
He eventually attempted a Panenka and missed.
Regragui does not blame the player for the choice but questions whether the long interruption changed the circumstances in which the penalty was taken.
“When you have a penalty in the 90th minute, you either score and become the African champion or you don’t,” he said. “The player chooses how to take it and follows through, but the question is, was the match played the same way after the 15-minute stoppage?”
“Would Brahim Díaz have taken the penalty the same way after 15 minutes?”
Regragui compared the situation with Kylian Mbappé’s missed penalty against Yassine Bounou in the quarterfinals of the 2026 World Cup.
“When Mbappé missed the penalty against Bounou, he told the referee, ‘I had two minutes. I started thinking too much,’” Regragui said.
“So, was it beneficial for Senegal or Morocco that someone waited 15 minutes in a home Africa Cup of Nations final with 60,000 people?”
He also rejected speculation that Diaz could have missed deliberately.
“How could someone with the Africa Cup of Nations in their hands deliberately miss it?”
Regragui said he spoke to Diaz once after the final.
“I told him, ‘You will learn from this experience, and it will help you grow as a man and as a player.’”
Regragui was ready to leave that night
The final also appears to have crystallized Regragui’s decision that his time with the national team was nearing its end.
“That same evening, I considered announcing my decision,” he said. “I love my team and my country so much that I knew I had to leave afterwards.”
Despite the outcome of the final, Regragui continues to regard the tournament as a success.
“The players gave everything they had. We were one of the best teams, if not the best,” he said, pointing in particular to Morocco’s performances against Cameroon and Nigeria.
He went further, saying: “I won the AFCON because even with all the pressure and everything that happened, we were the best in terms of possession, attitude and level.”
It was not the first time Regragui had contemplated leaving.
After Morocco’s elimination from the 2023 AFCON in Ivory Coast, he said he had decided to resign after failing to reach his target of the semifinals.
FRMF president Fouzi Lekjaa persuaded him to stay.
“He told me, ‘You haven’t finished your work.’ I thank him for that. He was right,” Regragui said.
‘I never saw anything negative from Hakim’
Regragui also revisited his relationship with Hakim Ziyech, whose return ahead of the 2022 World Cup was one of his first major decisions after taking charge.
“Hakim loves his country. He will come back. You just have to convince him; you just have to know how to do it,” Regragui recalled.
His message to Ziyech at the time was that returning was about the national team rather than the coach.
“It’s not me who needs you. It’s your country,” Regragui said he told him. “You’re not going to play for a coach—Vahid, Walid, X, or Y—but when Morocco calls you because it needs you and recognizes your talent, it will always support you.”
Regragui also pushed back against the reputation Ziyech acquired as a difficult personality.
“With me, I never saw anything negative from him. He shows up on time, trains hard and helps others,” he said.
“I never saw anything difficult with Hakim. Yes, he is a star; you have to manage him like a top player. When you respect him, he respects you in return.”
“Above all, he respects the national team more than me, and that is what matters.”
Walid Regragui. AFP
Morocco had tracked Yamal since he was 14
Regragui also shed light on the work behind convincing dual-national players to choose the Atlas Lions.
He said Morocco had been following Lamine Yamal from the age of 14 and tried to persuade him to commit to the national team before he ultimately chose Spain.
“Our plan was for him to play with the first team in Morocco, help the country grow and win the Ballon d’Or,” Regragui said.
“He ultimately chose Spain. In the end, you see the result: he won the World Cup and the European Championship. It is his choice. But we did the necessary work to convince him.”
Regragui said a similar approach was taken with Brahim Diaz, Adam Aznou, Ilias Akhomach and Nabil El Zhar.
Ayyoub Bouaddi’s case, he said, had been settled much earlier than publicly understood. According to Regragui, the midfielder had agreed to represent Morocco a year before eventually joining the national team.
“We had to support him. He was only 16,” he said. “We agreed not to hinder his development at his club.”
