red card Posted January 12 Share Posted January 12 (edited) The 34th edition of the biennial tournament was supposed to be played in June /July last year but was postponed to avoid Ivory Coast’s tropical rainy season. The 24-team tournament will feature six groups, with games spread across six stadiums in five cities. The top two in each group and the four best third-placed teams will progress to the knockout stage. Ivory Coast: Les Éléphants Equatorial Guinea: National Thunder Guinea Bissau: African Wild Dogs Nigeria: Super Eagles Cape Verde: Blue Sharks Egypt: Pharaohs Ghana: Black Stars Mozambique: Mambas Cameroon: Indomitable Lions Gambia: Scorpions Guinea: National Elephants Senegal: Lions of Teranga Algeria: Desert Foxes Angola: Sable Antelopes Burkina Faso: Stallions Mauritania: Almoravids Mali: Eagles Namibia: Brave Warriors South Africa: Bafana Bafana Tunisia: Eagles of Carthage DR Congo: Leopards Morocco: Atlas Lions Tanzania: Kilimanjaro Stars Zambia: Copper Bullets Group matches to watch on Bein or via fubo. Some are free to watch on Bein Sports Extra. Jan 16: Mali v South Africa Jan 18: Ivory Coast v Nigeria; Egypt v Ghana Jan 19: Senegal v Cameroon Jan 20: Tunisia v Mali Jan 21: Morocco v DR Congo Jan 24: South Africa v Tunisia Winner gets US$7m which is an increase of $2m from last tourney. Egypt has won most AFCON's at 7. https://www.cafonline.com/caf-africa-cup-of-nations/ This tourney has the most diverse set of kit manufacturers. Locals have the upper hand given their better understanding of the market while the majors have difficulties in setting price points to minimize counterfeits while maximizing revenue. Edited January 12 by red card Kadenge, Metro and masster 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red card Posted January 15 Author Share Posted January 15 The demos of the countries at the AFCON gives us a look at CAF's and the world football echosystem. By managers, outsourcing to non-Africans has dropped below 50%. By country, France leads with 4, followed by 3 Portuguese and 2 each from Belgium & Algeria. By players, less than 20% play with CAF clubs. French clubs lead with almost 15% of the players, followed by England with almost 8%, South Africa with 6% and Turikye with 5%. Outside of CAF & UEFA, AFC's Saudi Arabia has contributed the most with 4% of the players. South Africa, Tanzania & Egypt have the most domestic heavy squads. Burkina Faso, Gambia, Senegal & Guinea-Bissau have no domestic squad players. Senegal also has no one playing at a CAF club. South African club Sundowns has the most players at AFCON with 11. Then, we have Egypt's Al-Ahly with 10 and the Pyramids with 9. Top non-CAF clubs are Lorient and Marseille with 7 each. Top English club is Forest with 6. Whitecaps have uncapped Cyprian Kachwele on the Tanzanian squad. Metro, RJB, nolando and 1 other 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SoccMan Posted January 19 Share Posted January 19 Japan after crushing some top countries in Friendlies and blowing us out 4-1 loses to Iraq with a bunch of no name players today in the Asian Cup lol . Major upset at this tournament today . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadenge Posted January 24 Share Posted January 24 (edited) Lots of parity among the African teams and plenty of "upsets" as a result. I believe Algeria is out. Edited January 24 by Kadenge narduch 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red card Posted January 25 Author Share Posted January 25 The group stage is done. Knockouts begin on Saturday. Compared to recent AFCONs, this one has seen more goals, more inspiring play, more drama, larger crowds and crowd intensity has been kicked up a couple of notches. Crowd pagentry and evocative dancing continue to be the best amongst all tourneys including the World Cup. Weather is still hot as previous AFCONs but there is less rain, mostly new stadiums and better pitch maintenance which has likely contributed to this trending as the best AFCON ever. Refs/ VAR have been better than usual. Tv production/announcers have also been consistently good while it was hit or miss in the past. Gambia v Cameroon is being viewed as one of the all time great AFCON matches. We'll have to see the post AFCON analysis on why this shift has occurred or will the knockout matches revert back to the form of previous AFCONs. Plenty of shock results and tiny nations are making noise. Equatorial Guinea and Cabo Verde, AFCON's two smallest countries by population, have advanced. Mauritania, ranked 105th, beat the 2019 champions Algeria. 6 managers have already been fired/quit including from traditional powers Ghana, Tunisia & Algeria. Host Cote d'Ivoire let go their manager but they then just snuck into the knockout stage. Emilio Nsue, the Golden Boot leader plays fullback for third-tier Spanish club Intercity. For Equatorial Guinea, he's a striker, and he can't stop scoring goals. His 5 is the most by a player since 1970. Knockout matches amongst giants to watch are NGA v CMR on Saturday, SEN v CIV on Monday, and MAR v SFA on Tuesday. We also have a Southern Africa derby between Angola & Namibia and a West African derby between Mali & Burkina Faso. Unnamed Trialist, Kadenge, nolando and 1 other 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WestHamCanadianinOxford Posted January 25 Share Posted January 25 (edited) 7 hours ago, red card said: The group stage is done. Knockouts begin on Saturday. Compared to recent AFCONs, this one has seen more goals, more inspiring play, more drama, larger crowds and crowd intensity has been kicked up a couple of notches. Crowd pagentry and evocative dancing continue to be the best amongst all tourneys including the World Cup. Weather is still hot as previous AFCONs but there is less rain, mostly new stadiums and better pitch maintenance which has likely contributed to this trending as the best AFCON ever. Refs/ VAR have been better than usual. Tv production/announcers have also been consistently good while it was hit or miss in the past. Gambia v Cameroon is being viewed as one of the all time great AFCON matches. We'll have to see the post AFCON analysis on why this shift has occurred or will the knockout matches revert back to the form of previous AFCONs. Plenty of shock results and tiny nations are making noise. Equatorial Guinea and Cabo Verde, AFCON's two smallest countries by population, have advanced. Mauritania, ranked 105th, beat the 2019 champions Algeria. 6 managers have already been fired/quit including from traditional powers Ghana, Tunisia & Algeria. Host Cote d'Ivoire let go their manager but they then just snuck into the knockout stage. Emilio Nsue, the Golden Boot leader plays fullback for third-tier Spanish club Intercity. For Equatorial Guinea, he's a striker, and he can't stop scoring goals. His 5 is the most by a player since 1970. Knockout matches amongst giants to watch are NGA v CMR on Saturday, SEN v CIV on Monday, and MAR v SFA on Tuesday. We also have a Southern Africa derby between Angola & Namibia and a West African derby between Mali & Burkina Faso. I have liked the refs in the games I have seen. Watched the Zambia-Morocco game today and the ref booked probably the biggest star on the pitch - Hakimi - for simulation. Good to see. Edited January 25 by WestHamCanadianinOxford Trois Reds and Kadenge 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WestHamCanadianinOxford Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 Looks like they are going to get the call but really silly play by Morocco. Handball in the box but the ball falls pretty close to an attacker but instead of putting the ball into an open net, he runs at the ref for a penalty. .... And they miss the penalty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadenge Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 Morocco is out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadenge Posted January 30 Share Posted January 30 That was basically the same team squad that made it to the semis at the WC. Amazing number of upsets. Senegal got knocked out by IC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RJB Posted January 31 Share Posted January 31 An exciting round of QF to come. Not sure if Ivory Coast and Nigeria are considered underdogs, but I think it's hard to say there are favourites remaining. There are zero World Cup teams in the final eight, crazy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red card Posted February 8 Author Share Posted February 8 AFCON returned to being more normal in the knockout stage with traditional powers ending up in the Final. But there still lots of unexpected happenings especially in added time. Mali thought they had beaten 10-man Cote d'Ivoire in the quarters before a late equaliser sent it to extra time. Mali then thought they were heading to a penalty shootout before another goal knocked them out. At the senior level, Mali keeps on knocking on the door but they haven't yet fulfilled the promise seen from the success of their youth teams. DRC is another country who have been showing emerging potential but have yet returned to their past glories. The Super Eagles thought things were done and dusted when Osimhen made it 2-0 in the 85th minute in the semis. But VAR spotted a Nigerian foul in the other penalty area at the start of the move. Osimhen’s goal was chalked off. A South African penalty was awarded. A 2-0 Nigeria win was turned into a 1-1 draw in 4 minutes. Match went into penalties where Nigeria finally found their ticket to the Final. The consensus view is that this is the best of AFCONs. The question is if this tourney finally blossoming will take a step back at the next AFCON. It surpassed Copa America on and off the pitch to be the #2 confederation tourney. The marketing gods are more than satiated having the host country and the most populous African country that are two of Africa's football powers in the Final. So on Sunday, the most watched sporting event globally for the day should continue to be the AFCON Final rather than the US Super Bowl. You have to give credit to CIV/CAF for the organization, infrastructure, stadiums, refs, the intensity of the crowds & broadcast production. The money behind many of this comes from China's Belt-and-Road Initiative that CIV signed onto in 2017. Three of the 6 stadiums have either been designed or built by China. RJB and Goal_Kick 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unnamed Trialist Posted February 11 Share Posted February 11 I have a first-year student from Cabo Verde, very pleasant with beautiful English, and I was holding back about saying anything about Afcon. You never know if someone might think you're a total freak by yapping about some esoteric football subject. I had a guy from Macedonia and started talking football after they took out Italy in WC qualifying, but he is from the Albanian minority and was not a Macedonia fan, he could care less, so I was way off. But after Cabo Verde lost in quarters to South Africa, I casually mentioned the African Cup to Elianne. And her face lit up. She went into a long explanation of the game they lost vs. South Africa, the penalty rounds. She told me they really did not have a proper league (they do like a championship tournament of all the ten island winners), told me how she was in touch with her brothers back home while watching here. Then starting on other important Cabo Verde athletes, how many left and ended up representing other countries. Tells me about Tavares the basketball centre at Real Madrid, then in detail about Marina Correia the world longboard dancing champion, who I'd never heard of and is quite a phenom. I didn't realize, as @red cardwas saying, that the population was so low, under half a million. We all know we can be a pain since we are quite fanatical, but it is nice when it is reciprocated, and in this case, when you learn something. red card, Goal_Kick and RJB 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red card Posted February 12 Author Share Posted February 12 Haller scored a goal for the ages as the host country came back from the dead. Unlike South Korea who were derisively labelled as playing zombie football, CIV supporters deliriously called their team “les Revenants” - the Zombies. They were like ghosts but it’s not possible to die twice. CIV now has tied NGA for 3 AFCON titles. For AFCON, the numbers back the eye test that this was the most exciting ever. Goals/match rate of 2.47 in the group stage was the highest in 15 years. 7 goals in the group stage came from 10+ passes, 2x more than last AFCON. There was 13 stoppage time goals in the group stage. The group stage also averaged 12 sequences of 10+ passes per game, jumping up 31%. But it's still only at half of 2021 Euros and lower than the last Copa America and World Cup. This tournament is the first one in history to average over 600 successful passes per game. All of it points to an increase in the technical quality of the players. Like the Asian Cup, it showed there are no truly dominant super powers. But it showed the run-the-mill nations have reduced the gap. On the evidence of the last couple of weeks, CAF deserves more than nine places, and AFC fewer than eight. Off the pitch, it was also the best ever and reflective of the US$1B spent by CIV (with help from Chinese companies). CAF garnered the highest ever in sponsorship revenue. There was some ticketing issues and lack of convenient, affordable intra-Africa travel continued to hold back travelling support. It helps Africa has the strongest identity at the continent level which means AFCON is more than just a football tourney. Magic System, who have previously penned a World Cup theme song, helped with this AFCON's theme song that they performed in one of the better opening ceremonies amongst all football tourneys. RJB, nolando, Unnamed Trialist and 1 other 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nolando Posted February 13 Share Posted February 13 Great summary and analysis, @red card! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGAA_Star Posted February 18 Share Posted February 18 Yeah but for us Africans like myself, I already can't wait until AFCON next year because we have another one set for 2025 because COVID messed up the whole schedule and then it goes 2027, 2029 so on and so forth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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