The curtain has come down on the round of 16 competitions for the African Cup of Nations in football, currently being held in Morocco, and its activities will continue until January 18.
With the exception of the loss of the Tunisian team, champion of the competition in 2004, to its Malian counterpart with a score of 2/3 on penalties, after they tied 1/1 in regular and extra time, the matches of this round were devoid of surprises, as all the ranked teams advanced to the quarter-finals, continuing the struggle for the throne of African football in the 35th edition of the competition.
Unlike the Tunisian team, which missed the lead goal scored by its star Firas Shawat in the 88th minute and conceded the equalizer against Mali in stoppage time of the second half from a penalty kick, this round also witnessed the exit of another Arab team from the tournament, namely the Sudan team.
The Sudanese national team was unable to maintain its lead by one goal against the Senegal national team, bearing the signature of Omar Abdullah at the beginning of the match, and conceded 3 goals, losing 1/3 and bidding farewell to the competition in which it won in 1970.
On the other hand, the teams of Egypt, the historical champion of the competition, Morocco, the host of the tournament, and Algeria, the last Arab champion of the Nations of Africa, continued their march in the tournament, after rising to the quarter-finals.
Egypt won 3-1 over Benin, after resorting to extra time, while Morocco won with great difficulty 1-0 over Tanzania, and Algeria defeated the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the same result, fourth in the last edition, so that the trio now represents Arab football in the competition.
The three teams hope to regain the title for the Arabs, after missing them since the 2019 edition in Egypt, but their task seems extremely difficult in light of the rise of many other elite teams in the African continent to the quarter-finals.
The Cameroonian national team reserved its nomination paper after its 2-1 victory over South Africa, while the Nigerian national team achieved a sweeping 4-0 victory over Mozambique, which is the largest victory in this edition so far, and defending champion Côte d’Ivoire did not find the slightest difficulty in winning 3-0 over Burkina Faso.
The quarter-final matches will open with Senegal’s meeting with Mali next Friday, which will witness another meeting between Morocco and Cameroon, while the Algerian national team will face its Nigerian counterpart next Saturday, and Egypt will play with Côte d’Ivoire on the same day at the end of this round’s competitions.
What increases the intensity of the competition between the eight teams in this round is the qualification of 7 countries that have previously topped the podium in the African Nations, with the total number of their titles combined reaching 22 titles, which indicates the extent of the competition and excitement that the quarter-finals are expected to witness.
Egypt comes in the lead with seven titles, followed by Cameroon with five titles, then Nigeria and Côte d’Ivoire (three titles), and Algeria (two titles), with one title each for Morocco and Senegal.
While the Malian national team, the only team still competing for the title without holding the championship trophy yet, has enough motivation to also fight fiercely in order to win the competition for the first time in its history.
The last edition, which was held in Côte d’Ivoire two years ago, saw only 4 teams that had previously won the title qualify for the quarter-finals, compared to 5 teams in the 2019 and 2021 editions in Egypt and Cameroon, respectively.
While the teams of Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire continue their quest to combine winning the African Cup of Nations with qualifying for the World Cup this year, the teams of Cameroon and Nigeria find an opportunity to reconcile their fans by winning the prestigious African title, after the disappointment that befell them following their failure to advance to the World Cup, scheduled to be held next summer in the United States, Mexico and Canada, in a surprise of the highest caliber, especially since they are among the continent’s most representative countries. For Africa in the great global celebration.
As for the Mali national team, it also seems to be moving steadily forward in the tournament, and what is strange is that it is still searching for its first victory in the current edition of the competition, despite qualifying for the quarter-finals, after drawing in the three matches it played in the group stage against Morocco, Zambia and the Comoros, in addition to Tunisia in the round of 16, before using penalty kicks to overcome the “Eagles of Carthage” team, after a draw in the original and extra time.
The Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria and Mali teams maintained their presence in the quarter-finals for the second consecutive edition of the tournament, while the rest of the teams reappeared in this round again, after being absent from it in the last edition in 2023.
All the winners of the six groups also qualified for the quarter-finals, in addition to two teams that finished in second place in their groups, while the teams in the top four thirds in the group stage failed to advance to the round of 16.
The number of goals in the tournament so far has risen to 109 in 44 matches played so far, bringing the goal average now to 2.48 goals per match.
Moroccan Ibrahim Diaz is the top scorer in this edition with 4 goals, one goal ahead of his closest rivals, his compatriot Ayoub El Kaabi, Egyptian Mohamed Salah, Algerian Riyad Mahrez, and Malian Lassine Senayuku, in addition to the dangerous Nigerian duo Victor Osimhen and Ademola Lookman.
The Nigerian team sits at the top of the list of the teams with the most goals in the current version, after its players scored 12 goals, with 8 goals in the first round and 4 goals in the round of 16, where the Green Eagles team, which won the title in 1980, 1994 and 2013, is ahead of the Senegalese team, its closest competitor on the list, with a difference of two goals, while the Mali team had the lowest scoring tally among the teams promoted to the quarter-finals, after He scored only 3 goals.
The audience attendance at the tournament approached one million viewers, with the total number of spectators who were keen to watch the competition matches from the stands reaching 957,618 spectators, with an average of 21,764 spectators per match.
It is noteworthy that the winner of the match between Senegal and Mali will meet next Wednesday in the semi-finals with the winner of the match between Egypt and Côte d’Ivoire, while the winner from Algeria and Nigeria will play with the winner from Cameroon and Morocco in the other semi-final match on the same day.
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