For 90 minutes in Rabat, the AFCON match between Senegal vs Morocco looked like what you expect from a continental final: suffocating tension, narrow margins, elite defenders refusing to blink, and two world-class goalkeepers quietly dominating their areas. Then the board went up for eight minutes of stoppage time and everything lost its mind.
What followed wasn’t just late drama. It was a spiral. A Senegal “winner” that never was. A VAR rewind that flipped the emotional balance of the stadium. A penalty so controversial it emptied one team into the dressing room. A captain physically dragging the final back into existence. A Panenka attempt that floated into history for all the wrong reasons. And finally, extra time and a thunderbolt from Pape Gueye that ended the chaos in the purest way football allows.
Here’s how the final detonated, minute by minute, from 90 onwards.
🥅 AFCON Final chaos & a Panenka that broke hearts!
— 365Scores (@365Scores) January 18, 2026
Morocco get a last-minute penalty. Senegal players leave the pitch in protest but are convinced to return. Then… Brahim Díaz steps up and misses a soft Panenka with his weak foot.
The million-dollar question: Was that miss… pic.twitter.com/ETskKaOUZX
90:00. The warning sign
Eight minutes added. The Rabat crowd reads it instantly: this is the window. Morocco push higher, Hakimi stationed like a quarterback out wide. Senegal retreat into survival mode.
The match tightens into that familiar stoppage-time script: long balls, corners, bodies crashing into bodies, players appealing before the ball even lands.
90+2. Senegal think they’ve stolen it
A scramble. A rebound. A finish.
Senegal bundle the ball in after Abdoulaye Seck helps turn it goalward and Moussa Niakhaté reacts quickest to poke home. The Senegal bench explodes. The players sprint away. The noise from the Moroccan crowd drops into stunned silence for half a second.
Then the whistle.
The referee has already penalised Senegal for a foul on Hakimi in the build-up. The goal is gone before it ever really lives. Senegal cannot believe it. Morocco suddenly feel reprieved. The entire emotional axis of the final flips in seconds.
90+3 to 90+5. The anger phase
Senegal swarm the referee. Morocco howl at every challenge. The crowd is in full home-final mode, amplifying every decision. Senegal look rattled, furious, convinced the night is sliding away from them.
Morocco win another corner. The ball swings in. Bodies wrestle. Brahim Díaz hits the turf.
Play moves on. But upstairs, VAR has already started its work.
90+6. The screen appears
The referee heads to the monitor.
Replays show El Hadji Malick Diouf tugging Díaz in the box. Not dramatic. Not violent. Some would say soft. But enough. The stadium is already celebrating before the decision lands.
Penalty Morocco.
For Senegal, this is unbearable timing. They feel they just had a winner erased. Now they are being handed a potential knockout punch against them.
Their protest becomes something bigger.
90+8. Senegal walk
First slowly. Then fully.
Players drift away from the penalty area. Then head for the tunnel. Then disappear down it. The AFCON final, in stoppage time, suddenly has only one team on the pitch.
Officials scramble. Morocco wait. The referee stands in the middle of a match that has stopped existing.
It becomes a standoff with the clock ticking.
The 14-minute void
Senegal are in the dressing room. Boots off. Shirts off. Fury everywhere.
This is where Sadio Mané earns a different kind of captaincy. He goes back inside and convinces his teammates to return. Not with theatrics. With urgency. The alternative is forfeiture, sanctions, a title lost in paperwork rather than football.
Mané becomes the bridge between protest and survival.
Roughly a quarter of an hour after the penalty is given, Senegal re-emerge. The stadium boos. Morocco reset. The referee resets. The penalty still stands.
And now the taker has to deliver after the longest buildup imaginable.
The penalty that collapsed under its own weight
Brahim Díaz steps up.
The delay has inflated the moment beyond normal scale. Home final. Title on the line. Chaos in the background. And Díaz chooses audacity: a Panenka.
Except it isn’t a Panenka so much as a gentle chip with nowhere near enough disguise or height. Mendy barely moves. He reads it instantly and gathers it straight down the middle.
It is one of the most surreal misses in not just AFCON history but all of football. What was he thinking?
Morocco collapse in disbelief. Senegal roar with relief. The emotional whiplash is violent. What should have been Morocco’s winning moment turns into a lifeline for Senegal.
Seconds later, the whistle blows for full time.
0-0. Somehow.
But the match now feels emotionally broken. Morocco drained. Senegal revived.
Extra time: clarity after chaos
The noise has barely settled when extra time begins. But the psychological damage is clear. Morocco are still replaying the miss in their heads. Senegal suddenly look like the calmer side, as if surviving the storm has sharpened them.
And within minutes, they make Morocco pay.
94. Pape Gueye detonates the winner
Senegal win the ball around midfield and surge forward with purpose. Gueye steps into space, doesn’t hesitate, and unleashes a strike that rockets into the top corner.
No appeals. No delays. No VAR. Just a clean, unstoppable football action.
In a final hijacked by controversy, the decisive moment is pure.
Bounou doesn’t stand a chance. Senegal sprint in wild celebration. Morocco are forced to chase a game they thought they’d already won.
Morocco’s desperate push
The hosts throw everything forward for the remainder of extra time. Crosses, pressure, waves of attack. Senegal retreat but stay organised, Mendy commanding his box with authority after his penalty heroics.
Every Moroccan delivery carries hope. Every Senegal clearance carries weight. The clock crawls.
Morocco press, but the emotional toll is visible. The missed penalty lingers like a ghost they can’t outrun.
120. Senegal survive and seal immortality
The whistle finally arrives and Senegal collapse in joy and exhaustion.
They didn’t just win a final. They survived one that tried to implode in real time. A match that paused itself. A penalty that nearly rewrote history. A captain’s intervention that saved the game. And then a midfielder’s thunderbolt that ended the argument the only way that truly counts.
Senegal are champions. Morocco are left with heartbreak magnified by what might have been. And AFCON has a final that will live forever for its sheer, uncontrollable madness.
🇸🇳 SENEGAL ARE AFRICAN CHAMPIONS… AGAIN! 🏆
— 365Scores (@365Scores) January 18, 2026
After 2021, they lift the 2025 AFCON trophy – defeating Morocco in their own backyard.
A second continental crown for the Lions of Teranga! 🦁 pic.twitter.com/agXQEM2TWA
FAQs
Why was Senegal’s stoppage-time goal disallowed?
The referee judged a foul on Hakimi in the build-up before the rebound was finished.
What caused Senegal to walk off?
They protested a VAR-awarded Moroccan penalty for a shirt pull by Diouf on Díaz.
How long was the delay?
Approximately 14 to 16 minutes.
Who missed the penalty for Morocco?
Brahim Díaz, with a Panenka-style attempt saved by Édouard Mendy.
Who scored the AFCON 2026 winning goal?
Pape Gueye in the 94th minute of extra time.
Where was the final played?
Rabat, Morocco.
By Nicky Helfgott – NickyHelfgott1 on X (Twitter)
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