That’s it for the group stage—36 matches down at the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations, with 87 goals on the board and eight teams already packing their bags. Now only 16 games stand between us and the big finale on January 18. The Round of 16 kicks off this Saturday.

Let’s talk about five players who really lit things up in the group stage:

Brahim Diaz

Brahim Diaz has turned into the heartbeat of Moroccan football. The Real Madrid midfielder zipped around the pitch, scoring in all three group games, always in the thick of things. It’s not just his goals, though. He keeps defenders guessing, pressures them into mistakes, and sets up his teammates left and right. If Morocco wants to win this trophy at home, they’ll need Diaz, all 26 years of him, to keep running the show.

Ayoub El Kaabi

Ayoub El Kaabi has a flair for the spectacular. His overhead kicks are something else, and he’s been showing off that skill both for Morocco and Olympiakos. Even though he didn’t start the first match, the 32-year-old made up for lost time—three goals in three games, matching Diaz and Riyad Mahrez at the top of the scoring charts. As Morocco heads into the knockouts, El Kaabi looks set to play a huge role.

Ibrahim Maza

Ibrahim Maza, just 20 and already wearing Algerian colours after representing Germany at the youth level, has made a real impression. Algerian fans love his energy, his ability to link up play, and his fearless attacks. When he scored against Equatorial Guinea at the end of the first round, the crowd went wild. He’s got star potential written all over him.

Victor Osimhen

Nobody doubts Victor Osimhen’s threat up front for Nigeria. Sure, he misses some chances—sometimes it drives fans (and himself) a little crazy—but he’s constantly working defenders, creating space for teammates like Ademola Lookman. Osimhen, now 27, could be the driving force that takes the Super Eagles all the way in Morocco.

Sadio Mané

People wondered if Sadio Mane’s time with Senegal was winding down, especially with so much young talent coming up. Turns out, he’s not going anywhere. In his sixth Cup of Nations, Mane, now 33, still inspires the Lions of Teranga. His surges down the left wing are still central to Senegal’s attack.

With captain Achraf Hakimi barely featuring in the Africa Cup of Nations group stage while he recovers from injury, Ayoub El Kaabi has stolen the spotlight for the host nation.

Hakimi, crowned Africa’s best footballer, has only made a late cameo so far. Meanwhile, El Kaabi came off the bench and lit up the opening match against Comoros, sealing Morocco’s 2-0 win with a jaw-dropping overhead kick.

That goal changed everything for him. At 32, El Kaabi got the nod to start the next game—a 1-1 draw with Mali. He couldn’t find the net in that one, and the Moroccan team looked frustrated, weighed down by all the hype. But then Monday rolled around, and El Kaabi went right back to work, scoring twice in a 3-0 win over Zambia. Morocco topped Group A and booked a last-16 showdown with Tanzania in Rabat.

He opened the scoring with a header, then finished things off with—what else—another overhead kick.

Back home, fans went wild. Here’s a player who first broke into the national team before the 2018 World Cup but was never really a fixture in the starting eleven. Now, he’s a national hero.

You can’t escape the viral videos. Clips of fans imitating El Kaabi’s bicycle kick in the most unlikely places have exploded online. There was even a drone light show over Casablanca, recreating his acrobatic goal in the night sky. Someone put together a video montage of all his overhead kicks, and it racked up millions of views. Honestly, this move is his trademark. Back in the 2020/21 season with Wydad Casablanca, he scored four of them, and he’s pulled it off a few times for Morocco, including a stunning one against Benin last June.

But El Kaabi isn’t one to brag. After the Zambia match, he shrugged off the praise, saying, “The most important thing is to score. It doesn’t really matter who scores or how they do it.”

His story starts far from the spotlight, in the streets of Casablanca. He grew up in a tough neighbourhood, working as a carpenter to help his family get by. “I grew up in a shanty town in Derb Mila, a neighbourhood that everybody knows,” he told UEFA.com in 2024. Money was tight, so he’d go to school, then work construction jobs with his dad in the summers. “The work I did at that time made me a man,” he said. He still speaks fondly of carpentry: “It is a really great job that embraces art and creativity.”

El Kaabi didn’t sign his first pro contract until he was 21, with Racing Casablanca. After one standout season in Morocco’s second division, he moved up to Renaissance Berkane in the top flight, then had a spell in China. He came back to play for Wydad, then headed to Turkey, where he hit his stride with Hatayspor—until a devastating earthquake in early 2023 forced him to move on.

A short stay in Qatar followed, but the real turning point came when he joined Olympiacos in Greece. In just over two years, he’s scored 75 goals for them, including the winner in the UEFA Conference League final against Fiorentina in May 2024—a stooping header, not a bicycle kick for once.

El Kaabi first made his mark for Morocco by finishing as top scorer as they won the 2018 African Nations Championship, a tournament just for home-based players. He played at the World Cup in Russia that year, then captained Morocco to another African Nations Championship win in 2021.

He’s played at the Cup of Nations in both 2022 and 2024, but until now, he’d never scored at the tournament. Now, with Soufiane Rahimi and Youssef En-Nesyri behind him in the pecking order, he’s Morocco’s main man up front. On Sunday in Rabat, he’ll try to keep the story going with a win against heavy underdogs Tanzania.