Well it has been a very indifferent Africa Cup of Nations this one, 1 thing for sure it has provided enough entertainment though there hasn’t been many upsets with the top favourites Ghana and Ivory Coast cruising and winning their matches without much difficulty.
Cote D’Ivoire has won all their group stage matches, scoring 5 goals without conceding a single goal, in the quarter finals they get to meet 1 of the co-hosts Equatorial Guinea in what is expected to be a full house and this is going be a real test for The Elephants to see if they can really switch into a higher gear. One thing that is to be not ignored is the power of fans who will be cheering on Equatorial Guinea throughout the 90 minutes.
Ghana on the other hand haven’t been impressive more because they struggled to score goals in their opening match against one of the two AFCON debutants Botswana, the Zebras were very solid in defence and Ghana struggled to score more than one goal while all the pundits has predicted and expected Ghana to run wild on Botswana. Their second match was not much different with them picking a victory but not impressively again.
Now they face Tunisia on a match I deem to be the best this weekend, should Ghana not up their game they will be in deep trouble as there will be no other match to redeem themselves. All matches are now do or die, one mistake you are gone.
Zambia, the only country from COSAFA region that is still left in the tournament will face Sudan, another surprise packages of this tournament, nobody expected Zambia to be so impressive throughout the group stages and nobody without a doubt had expected Sudan to reach this stage. One way or the other, one team that was not expected to even go through the group stages will feature in the semi finals and I’m sure all our prayers are with Chipolopolo to win as this region of ours has been dominated by North and West Afrian countries
Though this tournament started without other Africa’s power houses because they failed to qualify. The likes of Nigeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Algeria & South Africa. Honours were put into Ghana & Ivory Coast and Senegal & Morocco who both got eliminated in the group stages. This has been entertaining and we now look to see if they would be any upsets this weekend. Will there be?
Here’s a full fixtures of quarterfinals:
Zambia vs Sudan – 4 February at Bata
Cote D’Ivore vs Equatorial Guinea – 4 February at Malabo
Ghana vs Tunisia – 5 February at Franceville
Gabon vs Mali – 5 February at Libreville
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