{"id":81653,"date":"2026-01-15T05:58:57","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T05:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=81653"},"modified":"2026-01-15T05:58:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T05:58:57","slug":"afcon-2025-super-eagles-fall-to-morocco-on-penalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2026\/01\/15\/afcon-2025-super-eagles-fall-to-morocco-on-penalties\/","title":{"rendered":"AFCON 2025: Super Eagles Fall to Morocco on Penalties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Nigeria\u2019s quest for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations title ended in heartbreak on Tuesday night as the Super Eagles lost 4-2 on penalties to host nation Morocco in the semi-final at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium, Rabat.<\/p>\n<p>The encounter ended goalless after 120 minutes, with both sides cancelling each other out in regulation time and extra time.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria remained solid defensively, with goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali making key saves, while Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman led the attack.<\/p>\n<p>The match was decided in the shootout after missed chances from Samuel Chukwueze and Bruno Onyemaechi proved costly.<\/p>\n<p>Morocco converted four penalties, with Youssef En-Nesyri scoring the decisive kick to seal victory.<\/p>\n<p>The defeat brings Nigeria\u2019s impressive AFCON campaign to an end, while Morocco advance to the final on home soil.<\/p>\n<p>The Super Eagles will now turn their attention to the third-place playoff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola Nigeria\u2019s quest for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations title ended in heartbreak on Tuesday night as the Super Eagles lost 4-2 on penalties to host nation Morocco in the semi-final at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium, Rabat. The encounter ended goalless after 120 minutes, with both sides cancelling each other out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":81655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,175],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-81653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sports","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81653"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81656,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81653\/revisions\/81656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}