{"id":21664,"date":"2025-12-26T05:22:52","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T03:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/morocco-coach-confirms-aguerd-fit-for-mali-match\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:40","slug":"morocco-coach-confirms-aguerd-fit-for-mali-match","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/morocco-coach-confirms-aguerd-fit-for-mali-match\/","title":{"rendered":"Morocco coach confirms Aguerd fit for Mali match"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Morocco head coach Walid Regragui has played down concerns over Nayef Aguerd\u2019s fitness, saying the defender is fully fit and available for Friday\u2019s Africa Cup of Nations Group A encounter against Mali.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The coach confirmed, however, that captain Romain Saiss will miss the match after picking up a muscle injury during Morocco\u2019s opening 2\u20130 win over Comoros. Regragui also provided an update on Achraf Hakimi, revealing that the full-back is still recovering from an ankle problem sustained while on club duty with Paris Saint-Germain last month and may only feature for a limited period.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Regragui also spoke highly of teenage defender Abdelhamid Ait Boudlal, describing the 19-year-old as a \u201cgreat talent\u201d and one of the promising prospects in the squad.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Morocco made a strong start to the tournament with victory over Comoros and can book their place in the knockout stages with a win against Mali at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21665,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-21664","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Morocco head coach Walid Regragui has played down concerns over Nayef Aguerd\u2019s fitness, saying the defender is fully fit","published_date":"2025-12-26 07:21:00","news_description":"Morocco head coach Walid Regragui has played down concerns over Nayef Aguerd\u2019s fitness, saying the defender is fully fit","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25247,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21664\/revisions\/25247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}