African Cup of Nations

Preview of the Cup

From 20th January to 10th February, all football fans point their attention to Ghana. The state in the western part of Africa will be the host of the 26th African cup of nations. Hosts Ghana and 14 other national teams will try to take the title form Egypt who triumphed in Cairo two years ago.

The participants…

12 groups played in the qualifications for the cup, and only Ghana (the hosts of the tournament) were a certain participant of this competition. Besides them the qualified are: Côte d\'Ivoire, Egypt, Nigeria, Sudan, Cameroon, Angola, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Namibia, Zambia and Morocco (the winners of their groups) and Tunisia, Benin and South Africa (as three best second-placed teams in the qualifications). Matches will be played on four stadiums, and the grand finale will be played on 10th February and will be played at Ohene Djan stadium in Accra.

The absence of African players - a problem for European football

Each next championship is more popular as the years go by, but the managers of big European clubs have a lot of problems because of that. This season English Premiership suffers most because of this competition because numerous stars left their teams (Drogba, Essien, Zokora, Kanu, Toure…) and traveled to Ghana. Primera and Serie A haven’t got that many players that will play in the Cup but then again the teams that ar fighting for the title will have to find other solutions to fill the voids in their teams.

Who can reach the title?

There are several favourites – Ghana are the hosts and the population of this state would be disappointed with each place other than the finals. Egypt are defending their title and they are certainly the favourites, most of the players in Cote d’Ivorie are the stars in their clubs; Nigeria have several individuals that can carry the burden of the whole game. Cameroon also have a good squad and their team are aware that winning the fifth title in history would bring 100 000 euros to each player. Favourites in the shadow are Mali, Senegal and South Africa and they will definitely wait for the slightest mistakes of the favoured teams in their groups to fight their way to the knock-out phase.

African football is growing rapidly, and we are about to see three weeks of excellent football, so we will try to help you earn something while having fun with the help of our previews.