Ivory Coast legend Yaya Toure has named Nigeria as the most impressive team he watched at the recently concluded 2025 African Cup of Nations tournament in Morocco, SportPremi reports.
The tournament was concluded last Sunday as Senegal won their second title with victory over Morocco in an action -filled drama at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium.
- Read this: SportPremi AFCON team of the tournament
The Super Eagles were one of the most impressive performers at the tournament, although they fell short off reaching the final.
Toure’s stance on Nigeria as AFCON 2025 most impressive performers
Four-time CAF Men’s Player of the Year award winner Toure, hailed the Super Eagles free-flowing attacking football as they ended the tournament in third place.
The former Manchester City midfielder who was part of the squad that won the AFCON tournament with Ivory Coast in 2015, also revealed his stance on some other countries that took part in the tournament.
“I was really impressed with Nigeria. Nigeria plays good football. When you look at the stats, they’ve been scoring more goals than usual”, the Ivory Coast legend stated.
“It feels like a full attack, playing really good football. The thing that impressed me the most was Nigeria — the way they played football and the goals they scored. The players won because they had the two top African players on their team.
“They played really good games but were knocked out by Morocco in the semifinals.”
On Morocco’s performance
“I’ve been impressed about the team with Walid Regragui. The manager of Morocco, very pragmatic, very direct and playing counter-attack.”
On other teams that impressed him
“I’ve been seeing the Afcon, I’ve been there as well. I’ve been impressed with Algeria, unfortunately they get kicked out by Nigeria,”
Well, Congo was also good. They were kicked out by Algeria. Ivory Coast was a young team, at time a bit naive but it’s part of the footballing experience”, he concluded.
Nigeria at the 2025 AFCON
The Super Eagles enjoyed a very impressive outing in Morocco and ended up with the bronze medal after their penalty shootout win over Egypt in the third-placed playoff match.
Nigeria eased to the top of Group C with a perfect record following wins over Tanzania, Tunisia and Uganda, scoring eight times and conceding four goals.
The three-time African champions then recorded the biggest margin of victory at the tournament, thrashing Mozambique 4-0 in the Round of 16, before they produced a dominant display in their 2-0 win over Algeria during the quarterfinals.
However, they suffered disappointment in the last four when they were beaten on penalties by hosts Morocco on penalties, before eventually defeating Egypt to clinch bronze medal.
Nigeria ended their campaign with 14 goals scored, which was the most at the tournament and with four clean sheets which all came during the knockout rounds.
