‘Only a crazy coach like me would accept this job’: After World Cup success, Morocco’s manager Walid Regragui looks ahead to AFCON

More than a year after a fairytale performance at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, all eyes are still on Morocco’s national football team and its head coach Walid Regragui. And to up the stakes even more, they are one of the favorites to win this latest edition of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) kicking off January 13.

Regragui, 48, played for the national team from 2001 to 2009, including the last time Morocco reached the AFCON semifinals in 2004. Now he hopes that as a manager he can clinch the country’s first AFCON title in 48 years.

Regragui was named head coach just three months before the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and then led Morocco to a historic fourth-place finish – becoming widely regarded as a national hero.

CNN’s Larry Madowo spent time with Regragui during a training session at the Mohamed VI Football Complex in Rabat last November, to talk about managing expectations ahead of AFCON without letting go of ambitions.

The following interview was edited and condensed for clarity.

Larry Madowo, CNN: Which one did you enjoy more: playing or coaching?

Walid Regragui: Playing, of course. This is what I keep telling my players. For me, the best job in the world is being a young professional footballer, and more so if you play to represent your country. Unfortunately, we only realize that at the end of our careers. And coaching? Well, that’s another job.

Stage to a plethora of the sport's most talented players, The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) represents the pinnacle of men's football on the continent. Ahead of its 34th edition, in Ivory Coast, look through the gallery to see photos of some of the competition's most memorable moments. Pictured, Cameroon players celebrate their triumph in 2017.

Though the inaugural tournament in 1957 featured just three teams (Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan), eight sides made up the competition by the 12th edition in Nigeria, 1980. Led by captain Christian Chukwu, pictured with the trophy in hand, the hosts beat Algeria 3-0 to clinch their first AFCON title in style.

Libya's dream of hosting the tournament for the first in its history ended in heartbreak in 1982. Having reached the final in Tripoli, the Mediterranean Knights suffered a 7-6 loss on penalties after a 1-1 draw with Ghana. They have not reached the tournament's final four since.

Cameroon's Francois N'doumbe hurdles a robust challenge from Pascal Miezen, midfielder for competition hosts Ivory Coast in 1984. N'doumbe and the Indomitable Lions lived up to their nickname at the tournament, condemning the hosts to a group stage exit before going on to beat Nigeria 3-1 in the final to claim the first of their five AFCON crowns.

South Africa was never expected to stage AFCON 1996, let alone win it. Assigned hosting duties after original organizers Kenya were stripped of the role due to inadequate preparations, a fairytale run saw "Bafana Bafana," as the national team is known, walk out in front of 80,000 spectators at Soccer City, Johannesburg, for the final against Tunisia.

A second-half brace from Mark Williams fired South Africa to a famous 2-0 victory in the 1996 final, allowing captain Neil Hovey -- pictured here along with dignitaries including President Nelson Mandela -- to hoist aloft the country's sole AFCON trophy to date. Arriving just eight months on from the country's legendary Rugby World Cup win on home soil, it sealed another famous sporting achievement for post-apartheid South Africa.

South Africa came within 90 minutes of defending its title in Burkina Faso two years later, but fell 2-0 in the final to Egypt, which claimed its fourth AFCON title.

2000 marked the first time AFCON was hosted by two countries -- Nigeria and Ghana. Ghana, shown warming up before a group match against Togo, were knocked out in the quarter finals by South Africa, who were in turn beaten by Nigeria in the semi-finals.

Samuel Eto'o may well be heralded as Cameroon's -- and possibly even Africa's -- greatest ever player, but strike partner Patrick M'Boma, pictured, played an even more pivotal role in the country's dramatic final triumph over Nigeria in 2000. Both scored in the 2-2 draw, but with Eto'o substituted off during regular time, M'Boma stayed on to convert the first penalty of a 4-3 shootout win, and was subsequently awarded African Footballer of the Year.

After triumphing in one of the competition's all-time great penalty shootouts at the 2006 AFCON quarter-final stage -- beating Cameroon in a 12-11 epic -- Ivory Coast incurred the wrath of the spot kick gods in the final. The Elephants lost 4-2 on penalties to Egypt following a goalless draw as the hosts claimed their fifth AFCON win.

Chelsea legend Didier Drogba was center-stage again for entirely different reasons during the AFCON qualifying stages in 2007. Credited with playing a role in helping to end Ivory Coast's bloody civil war, pictures of the striker being escorted off the pitch by Ivorian rebel soldiers moments after scoring the final goal in a 5-0 win over Madagascar in Bouake -- the base of the rebellion -- symbolized his unifying impact.

Ghana buzzed with excitement after a late goal from striker Manuel Agogo sent the hosts into the semi-final in 2008, yet a subsequent 1-0 defeat to Cameroon would deny the Black Stars their dreams of a third AFCON win on home ground.

The lead up to AFCON 2010 in Angola was marked by tragedy when a bus transporting the Togo team was fired on with machine guns in a terrorist attack, killing three and leaving at least seven others wounded. Despite the players' wishes, the Togolese government ordered the team to withdraw, leading to a two-tournament suspension from The Confederation of African Football (CAF). The ban was lifted a few months later following an appeal from Togo to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

After two previous final defeats, Zambia finally clinched their first AFCON title in fairytale fashion at the 2012 tournament in Gabon, defeating Ivory Coast in a nail-biting penalty shoot-out in Libreville. Head coach Herve Renard dedicated the win to the victims of the plane crash that killed the team's coach and 18 squad members shortly after taking off from Libreville in 1993.

Cameroonian players warm up ahead of their 2017 final against Egypt in Libreville. Despite eight of their star players refusing Belgian coach Hugo Broos' call up to the squad for the tournament, the Indomitable Lions defied the odds, as Vincent Aboubakar's late winner completed a 2-1 comeback and clinched a fifth AFCON title.

Yacine Brahimi and his teammates celebrated Algeria's second-ever AFCON win in 2019, as Baghdad Bounedjah's early deflected goal - Algeria's only shot of the game - was enough to secure a 1-0 victory over Senegal in Cairo, Egypt.

Yet Senegal exorcised the demons of that painful loss on the first attempt at the pandemic-delayed 2022 tournament in Cameroon, defeating Egypt on penalties following a goalless draw -- and subsequently parading the country's first ever AFCON trophy through the streets of Dakar.

Africa Cup of Nations: Photos show the tournament through the years

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LM: What made you decide or agree to come back to support the Moroccan national team?

WR: I didn’t decide; it happened. I had just won the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champion’s League with Wydad AC, so my goal was to play in the Club World Cup, maybe dream of coaching in Europe one day, so it was an evolution of my career. The national team was to come perhaps much later.

Then came the decision at the federation to change coaches. I think today everyone thought it was an easy challenge, but it wasn’t. I think that only a crazy coach like me would accept this job three months before the World Cup. No European coach would’ve taken on the national team, and I don’t think there is a local coach who dared to take on the challenge.

LM: Let’s go back to the World Cup. Did you think the team was going to go as far as it did?

WR: It would be a bit of an exaggeration to say that we thought we could make it to the semi-final or even dream of being able to win the World Cup. At the end of the first round, we dreamed of at least equaling what our elders had done in ‘86, that is to say, bringing Morocco back to the Round of 16. But why not dream of putting on a great performance?

Walid Regragui, head coach of Morocco's national football team, instructs his players from the touchline in Qatar during a FIFA World Cup match in November 2022.

That really got inside the heads of the players as soon as I took office. We set out with ambition. And it’s true that after having passed the first round at that time, we said to ourselves that we were capable of doing better and why not go and win the World Cup?

LM: And in the World Cup in Qatar, a lot of the African players were coached by homegrown coaches for the first time. Do you think that speaks about the quality of the coaching coming out of the African continent?

WR: That’s a very good question, and there are different ways to answer: Is there a generation of African coaches who have reached a very good level, and have finally been given their chance? Or is it that African leaders realized that there were quality managers in their country all along, who could take over the national team and be the equivalent of European or South American coaches? I think the quality of the coaches has always been there.

Today we have passed the threshold in Africa of saying that we need to bring back a foreigner to succeed. We showed that we could take our teams to a very high level, whether it was me, [Senegal’s] Aliou Cissé or other coaches. I believe there will be a “before-and-after” this World Cup in Qatar.

LM: Let’s go back to that quarterfinal game against Portugal. What’s going through your mind and what did that victory mean for you and for Morocco?

WR: Our objective as a staff was to figure out why we couldn’t get past this glass ceiling, this barrier that African countries couldn’t reach the semi-final. Maybe it was mental. We had prepared well, but we knew we had Portugal. It was one of the best teams in the world with Cristiano Ronaldo, but we were ready.

I think the players proved it on the pitch, proved that Morocco and that Africa was capable. And that helped the players, it boosted their confidence to seize the opportunity.

Regragui, center, applauds supporters after the team's 0-2 defeat to France in the semifinals of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar on December 14, 2022.

LM: Morocco has not won the Africa Cup of Nations since 1976. How do you think you’ll do in the competition?

WR: We have important goals. In this training center [Mohamed VI Football Complex] there is a photograph of the national team which were the last winners of the African Cup in 1976. Every day when the players come here, they look at the photo and get inspired. My goal as a coach is not to remove this photo but it is to put a new photo of the next winners here.

LM: You were recognized as Africa’s “Coach of the Year” at the Confederation of African Football awards last December. What does that mean to you?

WR: These are not things I’m very interested in. What interests me most is my team.

Today many individual trophies are awarded, either CAF, Ballon d’Or or FIFA Awards. It is nice to see Africans like myself at these awards, but because it enhances the continent, and most of all, it enhances the Moroccan football landscape.