Confederation of African Football (Giza)
Morocco national team has begun the final phase of preparations for 2012 Orange CAF Africa Cup of Nations in the Spanish city of Marbella.
The camp lasts till January 18th and the Atlas Lions will take off for Gabonese capital Libreville for the finals which will run from January 21st to February 12th in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea.
Morocco delegation included the technical staff and 19 of the 23 players managers Eric Gerets selected.
The four locally based players Nadir Lmyaghri, Essam Bada, Abdel Fatah Boukhrisse and Mustafa Lamrani will join the team after playing with their respective clubs in the Professional Moroccan Championship on Sunday.
The Moroccan Football Association announced that the Atlas Lions will face Swiss side Grasshoppers at the 9000 seat Marbella Stadium on January 16th before flying to Libreville 3 days later.
Meanwhile the news from the Moroccan camp is that there are some concerns about striker Oussam Saidi after he suffered a recurrence of a back problem.
Saidi was advised not to play before regaining full form, and hence Gerets had put Ajax striker Mounir El Hamdaoui on stand -by as a possible replacement for Saidi in case the later won’t be fit on time.
Morocco is drawn in the Cup of Nations Group C with co hosts Gabon, Tunisia and Niger.
