The African Cup of Nations soccer tournament is set to crown a winner on Friday afternoon after nearly a full month of play. The tournament offered plenty of drama long before the first match began. The competition was originally slated to be held in Cameroon for the first time since 1972. This would have been doubly appropriate as Cameroon was the defending champions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suffice to say that things didn’t go well for Cameroon on or off the field. On November 30, 2018, Cameroon was stripped of their status as African Cup of Nations host country for several reasons not the least being the on-going sectarian violence in the country (eg: the Boko Haram insurgency, the Ambazonia War). On a more practical level, the necessary infrastructure to host such a major event was well behind schedule. That left the Confederation of African Football (CAF) without a host at the start of 2019. On January 8, the CAF Executive Committee officially moved the tournament to Egypt. At the same time, it was rescheduled from it’s original dates (June 15 to July 13) to a start a week later due to Ramadan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cameroon did reach the knockout stages as did the host country of Egypt but both were eliminated in the Round of 16. Senegal beat Uganda in the first knockout round, Benin in the quarterfinals and Tunisia in the semifinals–all three victories coming by identical scores of 1-0 (though they needed added time to get past Tunisia). Algeria reached the finals by beating Guinea in the Round of 16 (3-0), Ivory Coast via penalty kicks in the quarterfinals, and Nigeria (2-1) in the semifinals. On Wednesday, Nigeria edged Tunisia 1-0 to take third place in the competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senegal was the top ranked African nation entering the tournament and win or lose here they’ve more than justified this position. They nearly reached the knockout stages of the 2018 World Cup–they finished the group stage tied with Japan who ended up advancing on ‘fair play points’. Since then, they’ve played well and have been especially tenacious on defense–they’ve earned 10 clean sheets in their last 12 games. The problem is that they may lack the confidence to beat Algeria. They’ve never beaten them in eight matches during Cup of Nations play with Algeria winning six. Algeria has also won 4 of 5 games in other settings. Both teams are solid defensively but Algeria looks to have a bit more fluency on offense. Even so, the soccer betting odds<\/a> on the final has Senegal installed as a small favorite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n