Super Africa Cup of Nations 2023

The Africa biennial football cup, Africa Cup of Nations 2023 edition, is being hosted by the West African country of Ivory Coast. The event is sponsored by the Oil and Gas giant TotalEnergies. The competition will run from Saturday, January 13, 2024 to Sunday, February 11, 2024. The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) has been facing series of revamp since 2010 edition. For instance, the Confederation of African (CAF) changed the football tournament to odd-numbered years to avoid clashing with the World Cup.

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Why Africa Cup of Nations 2023 in 2024?

Although the 2023 Nations Cup was due to be held in June-July 2023, but the host nation Ivory Coast requested for change in schedule to January- February 2024 while retaining the original title name. This decision was to avoid the rainy season of the typical West and Central African tropics.

The African Cup of Nation 2023 the Journey so Far

The African Cup of Nation 2023 has been full of intrigues and surprises. Generally, the quality of play has been fantastic as evident by the number of goals scored at the group stage. The AFCON 2023 in Ivory Coast has produced the total of 89 goals from 36 matches in the group stage making average of 2.472 goals per game. Interestingly, Equatorial Guinea has scored 9 goals which is the most goals of the group stage. However, comparing this feast to the last AFCON edition 2021 in Cameroon, the group state produced the total number of 68 goals at an average of 1.89 goals per match. The host nation Cameroon scored 7 goals being the highest number of goals.

The Major Highlights of the AFCON 2023 Group Stage

1. Upset as Big Teams lose out of Group Stages

One of the talking points of AFCON 2023 toutnment are the big teams who will usually qualify to the second round losing out in group stage. Among these Teams are Ghana, Algeria and Tunisia. The Ghana football Team who has seen their worst of the AFCON performance in this tournament have refused to revamp their nationl Team for optimum performance. The influence of Ayew brothers has not been favorable for the good course of the Ghana Team. Asamoah Gyan the most Cap Ghanian footballer has scored 59 goals in 109 games. However, André Ayew with 119 Caps and Jordan Ayew also with 100 Caps only have a total of 46 goals for these 219 games that is 24 and 22 goals respectively.

2. Six Coaches Fired by the End of the Group Stage

Sadly, some coaches have lost their jobs; their respective FA sent them packing. Incredible number of head coach’s “casualty” just by the end of the group stage of AFCON 2023 Tournament is alarming. The list of the Head Coaches are:

  • Chris Hughton Head Coach of Ghana Football Team fired for poor performance.
  • Famous Djamel Belmadi Head Coach of Algeria Football Team fired for losing out of group stage.
  • Jalel Kadri Head Coach of Tunisia Football Team fired for woeful Team performance.
  • Tom Saintfiet Coach of Gambia Football Team resigns after AFCON 2023.
  • Adel Amrouche coach of Tanzania Team sacked after getting an 8-match ban for bad comment about Morocco at AFCON 2023.
  • Jean-Louis Gasset head coach of Ivory Coast sacked for poor performance.

3. Host Nation Lost Woefully to a Lesser Ranked Team

In the history of Ivory Coast Football Team, the heaviest home defeat was their 4-0 defeat against Equatorial Guinea.  Also, this defeat makes it second consecutive home defeat after the 1-0 defeat against the Super Eagles of Nigeria. These have granted Ivory Coast another award-breaking spree of the first AFCON host nation to lose two group games since they did so in 1984.

4. Good Performance from Team Cape Verde

Regarded as minor, nobody gave Cape Verde a chance. Their last four stats LWDL were very unimpressive. However, in the AFCON 2023 group stage, Cape Verde won Ghana, Mozambique and had a draw with Egypt to top the Group, their best record in the tournament so far. They are known as underdogs, but only few people took into consideration that Cape Verde ranked only 27th in the world and 3rd in Africa.

AFCON 2023 Round of 16 Fixtures

  • Angola 3-0 Namibia (Stade de Bouaké) 27/01/2024, 17:00
  • Nigeria 2-0 Cameroon (Felix Houphouet-Boigny) 27/01/2024, 20:00
  • Equatorial Guinea 0-1 Guinea (Stade Olympique Alassane Ouattara) 28/01/2024, 17:00
  • Egypt 1-1 DR Congo (Stade Laurent Pokou) 28/01/2024, 20:00
  • Cape Verde – Mauritania (Felix Houphouet-Boigny) 29/01/2024, 17:00
  • Senegal – Ivory Coast (Stade Charles Konan Banny de Yamoussoukro) 29/01/2024,  20:00
  • Mali – Burkina Faso (Amadou Gon Coulibaly Stadium) 30/01/2024, 17:00
  • Morocco – South Africa (Stade Laurent Pokou) 30/01/2024, 20:00

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Ogunsola Rotimi

An Entrepreneur, Civil Engineer, Project Manager and an Advocate of a Better Society..

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