Morocco will return to Casablanca’s Mohammed V Stadium on Friday for a 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Niger, ending a wait that has stretched back to June 2022. It will be the national team’s first match at the ground since that month, when the side last played there in front of the same city that has long treated the stadium as part of its football identity.
The timing gives the fixture weight beyond the points on offer. Morocco last used Mohammed V Stadium on June 13, 2022, when Fayçal Fajr and Youssef En-Nesyri scored in a 2-0 win over Liberia in an AFCON qualifier. A few months earlier, on March 29, 2022, Azzedine Ounahi scored twice, Tarik Tissoudali added another goal and Achraf Hakimi also found the net in a 4-1 victory over DR Congo that booked Morocco’s place at Qatar 2022.
That stretch belongs to a different chapter for the national team. Vahid Halilhodzic was in charge in both of those matches, while Walid Regragui later replaced him and led Morocco to the semi-finals of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Since then, Morocco have moved through another coaching cycle and reached the quarter-finals of the 2026 World Cup before losing 2-0 to France, all while the stadium that helped frame earlier milestones was shut away from them.
Mohammed V Stadium, which opened in 1955, closed in October 2023 and then underwent major renovation work between March 2024 and March 2025. It also hosted matches during the 2025 AFCON, which helps explain why the ground is back in the conversation now, but not why Morocco waited until Friday to return there. The missing detail is the one fans will notice most once the teams walk out: the stadium is ready again, yet the national side has not treated it as home for more than two years.
That gap is what gives the match its edge. Mohammed V Stadium has always been closely tied to Raja and Wydad, and Morocco’s return there lands like a reset rather than a routine qualifier. Friday will tell supporters whether the renovated ground can again become the setting for the national team’s biggest nights, starting with Niger and a result that would make the comeback more than symbolic.
