Morocco host Madagascar at the Stade Prince Moulay Abdallah on Tuesday evening in a friendly that arrives with real purpose attached. For Mohamed Ouahbi, it is one more chance to sharpen a squad that is already looking toward a World Cup opener against Brazil on June 13.
The timing matters because Morocco have little more than two weeks left before their Group C opener, and the signs around the team are encouraging. They beat Burundi 5-0 last Tuesday, have won four of their last five matches and scored seven goals across their last two outings, with Ayoub El Kaabi and Soufiane Benjdida both scoring twice against Burundi and Tawfik Bentayeb adding the other goal. A March friendly draw with Ecuador was the one recent reminder that this run still needs polishing, but Ouahbi has had enough from the calendar to see how his side are taking shape after he replaced Walid Regragui in March.
Morocco are not just getting ready for Madagascar. They are using the match as part of a final block of preparation before they face Norway in another friendly on June 7 and then turn fully to the World Cup. Their group in the tournament is not gentle: Brazil first, then Scotland on June 19 and Haiti on June 24. For a team that remains the first and only African nation to reach a World Cup semi-final, the coming weeks are about turning that history into another deep run.
Madagascar arrive with a different kind of momentum. They beat Kyrgyzstan 5-2 in one of their two most recent outings and drew 1-1 with Equatorial Guinea in the other, both away from home. Those results suggest a side that can make life awkward, even if the rankings do not flatter them: Madagascar sit 104th in the world, almost 100 places behind Morocco. That gap is why the game is being framed as a useful test for the hosts, but it is also why Morocco cannot treat it like a routine tune-up.
The teams have already crossed paths twice in the African Nations Championship, a competition limited to locally based players. Madagascar beat Morocco 3-0 in the 2023 group stage, and Morocco answered by winning 3-2 in the 2025 final. Those results do not decide Tuesday’s friendly, but they do explain why the meeting carries a little more edge than a standard summer date. Morocco are trying to leave no loose end before Brazil, while Madagascar are using a rare high-profile away assignment to build toward later AFCON qualification work. Ouahbi still has one question no one can answer from the outside: which players he will trust from the start when the whistle goes in Rabat.
