Ghizlane Chebbak grew up surrounded by football. Her late father, Larbi Chebbak, was part of Morocco’s team that won the Africa Cup of Nations in 1976. When he gave his daughter a football as a child, it sparked a passion that would eventually make her one of the most influential figures in Moroccan women’s football.
Chebbak played football in the streets of Casablanca with her brothers and other boys. By the age of eight, she was already playing for a club.
“In my neighborhood, I was the only girl playing football,” she said. “My family helped me continue in the sport.”
That support helped shape a career spanning two decades. Now 35, Chebbak is preparing to lead Morocco into a third consecutive Women’s Africa Cup of Nations campaign, with the host nation aiming to win its first continental title.
Morocco will open its tournament against Kenya at Rabat’s Moulay El Hassan Stadium. The Atlas Lionesses have finished runners-up in the previous two editions, and Chebbak believes the team has the quality to go one step further.
“One of my biggest dreams is to win a title with the national team,” she said. “All the titles I won at club level or individual awards would not amount to 1 percent of a title I would win with the national team.”
Chebbak won the Golden Boot at the previous two WAFCON tournaments, scoring five goals last year and three in the preceding edition.
Morocco’s progress has been rapid. The team returned to the WAFCON in 2022 after a 22-year absence and reached the final, with Chebbak named Player of the Tournament and leading scorer. That run also secured Morocco’s place at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, making the country the first Arab nation to qualify for the tournament.
The World Cup campaign began with a 6-0 defeat to Germany, but Morocco responded with victories over South Korea and Colombia to reach the knockout stage.
Chebbak said the criticism the team received after the heavy loss became a source of motivation.
“People were sending us sarcastic messages and making fun of us,” she recalled. “But these messages motivated us to change people’s mentality and show that we had not come just to participate.”
She credits the transformation of Moroccan football to years of investment in infrastructure, administration and the women’s game.
“It took years to get here; it’s not by chance,” she said. “I lived in a time when there was nothing dedicated to women’s football, and now there is everything, thank God.”
Chebbak’s club career includes 12 years with ASFAR, where she won 10 Moroccan league titles and nine Throne Cups. She later played in Egypt, moved to Spain’s Levante Badalona in 2024 and joined Saudi Arabia’s Al-Hilal last season.
She has also collected major individual honours, becoming the first Moroccan to win the African Women’s Footballer of the Year award and the first Moroccan to earn a place in the FIFPRO Best XI.
Chebbak says those achievements bring greater responsibility, especially as younger players look to her as an example.
Her immediate focus, however, is Morocco’s WAFCON campaign. With a continental title and qualification for the 2027 Women’s World Cup at stake, the veteran forward remains focused on the one prize she values most.
“My biggest ambition will always be to win a title with the national team,” she said.
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