“In January, there’s a little tournament in Africa“, these are the words of Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp in 2021 as regards the biggest football competition in the continent, and a Twitter user @EmeritusTolu called it a “useless tournament” due to its timing. Whether you believe it is “little” or “useless”, is up for debate but one thing the 2023 edition of the Africa Cup Of Nations has shown is that even its greatest critics would have to be staunch haters not to have enjoyed the AFCON group stage that had it all.
We have witnessed breathtaking moments of football, heartache for some countries, bliss for others, mouthwatering goals, poor defending, and a lot in the 36 games we have seen in the group stage. In this article, we look at some things we have learned from the group stage.
EXPANSION HAS BEEN A MASTERSTROKE SO FAR.
Change is the only constant thing in life they say and while some changes will make you regret why that change happened, some make you wonder why you have not taken on that change earlier. The latter has been the story of the AFCON since 2019 when the tournament expanded from 16 teams to the current format of 24 teams.
I was not a big fan of the expansion when it was introduced because I am an apostle of, if it’s not broken don’t fix it, coupled with the belief that we will see more games that will be one-sided but I have been proven wrong after the first two editions of the expanded competition and the on-going one.
Apart from giving a platform for some countries that might have found it hard to qualify in the old formats, this expansion has given five countries their debuts (Burundi, Mauritania, and Madagascar in 2019, Comoros and The Gambia in 2021) but it has also made sure some big guns also avoid getting eliminated in the qualifying phase unlike years ago when Egypt failed to make to it to three consecutive editions (2012, 2013 and 2015), Nigeria in two consecutive editions (2015 and 2017), Morocco (2010), Ghana and Ivory Coast (2004). It will interest you that none of these countries have failed to qualify since the expansion.
AFRICAN FOOTBALL CAN BE POSITIVE TOO
In football terms, negative football means you are defensive in your approach to games while positive equates to being more adventurous and playing on the front foot. Going into this tournament, the popular consensus among football followers is that African football does not generate goals because teams come into games with the mindset of ruggedness and defence first but the group stage has shown to be different from what was expected.
Goals, Goals, Goals have been the mantra of the group stage with a total of 89 goals scored in the group stage, which is more than the 68 goals recorded in the 2019 and 2021 editions of the tournament at this same stage of the competition. In the 2019 and 2021 editions, two countries failed to score in each but here all participating countries have scored at least once, we recorded five goalless draws in the group stage of 2019 and four in 2021 but we waited until the last day of the group stage before we saw the three draws had in this edition. Due to the projection of cagey affairs in AFCON, we had 11 one-nil victories during the group stage in 2019, and 15 in 2021 but we recorded only 7 in the group stage of 2023.
The beauty of this change in approach is that the goals have come in various forms. It could be a sumptuous free-kick from Equatorial Guinea’s Garnet against Ivory Coast, a well-struck penalty from Troost Ekong of Nigeria, or a long ranger from Mauritania’s Aboubakary Koita consolation against Angola.
This is insane from Mauritania herh https://t.co/J5GmQ00ajU
— TWO TERTY (@TwoTerty_) January 20, 2024
AFCON 2023 Group Stage: BIG GUNS FAILED TO SPARKLE
When Algeria won the 2019 edition of the AFCON, it felt like this team would be here to dominate for some time but events after that triumph in Egypt have been underwhelming. The two-time African champion came into the 2021 edition in fine form but their 35-match unbeaten run ended at the hands of Equatorial Guinea. The Elephants finished bottom of their group without winning a single game. It was a repetition of 2021 as they also finished bottom of their group without winning a single game.
Another traditional powerhouse that failed was Ghana, in the back-to-back AFCON tournament, the Black Stars of Ghana failed to progress from the group stage and this would be more painful than the last edition’s elimination. Ghana lost their opening game to Cape Verde before taking the lead twice in their second group game against Egypt, only to end in a draw. The Black Stars were two goals up in their last group game against Mozambique, before settling for another draw courtesy of goals in the 91st and 94th minutes by their opponent.
AFCON 2023 Group Stage: Traditional Power Houses Paying The Ultimate Price
Tunisia’s failure to progress from a group that has Namibia, South Africa, and Mali was another shocker based on the fact that this group produced a third-placed team and that team was Namibia and not the Carthage Eagles. Tunisia scored a solitary goal in this tournament, Namibia got their first-ever win at the AFCON against Tunisia
While Algeria, Ghana, and Tunisia paid for their misdeeds with elimination, some other big guns were lucky not to have joined the party. Cameroun were a few minutes away from elimination until a miraculous turnaround happened in their last game against The Gambia, the Indomitable Lions were facing elimination when Gambia took the lead in the 85th minute but an own goal and a 91st minute goal made sure the five times Champions will face old time rivals Nigeria in the next round. Host Ivory Coast had to wait until the last game to seal qualification to the next round through the back door (third-placed side) and avoid a repeat of failing to qualify from the group stage as was the case when they hosted the tournament in 1984.
EPL CAN LEARN ONE OR TWO THINGS FROM CAF
Watching refereeing decisions at this AFCON, you begin to wonder where the Centre Referees, Assistant Referees, and VAR officials are from, compared to the ones we see every weekend in the English Premier League, where apologies over refereeing decisions have been more prominent.
It’s been now a week of games since the Afcon started and 0 big mistakes from the refs. In conclusion English refs are terrible and PL is just bad with VAR
— Ahma ???????? (@serigne_a_fall) January 20, 2024
At the last AFCON, one of the talking points was when Zambian referee Janny Sikazwe made the headlines for the wrong reasons when he ended a game (Tunisia vs Mali) before the 90-minute mark but the story has changed with the refereeing at this tournament. Decisions by referees at the tournament have been spot on, from offside decisions to on-field decisions and a visit to the monitor has been spot on.
No match in this group stage has witnessed poor refereeing decisions and you wonder why Howard Webb is not in Ivory Coast to learn one or two things.
AFCON 2023 Group Stage: A STAGE FOR THE UNDERDOGS
When Seko Fofana led Ivory Coast to the first win of this tournament in the opening game against Guinea Bissau, one would have thought that would have been the theme for the group stage games, where the “big boys” will ride over the “small boys” but what ensued after was different from the scripts.
Except for Senegal, no other African team won all their group games. Morocco and Nigeria won two games each, the same number of wins Cape Verde, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea had to finish top of their various groups. Cameroun and Ivory Coast won one game each, something Guinea, Mauritania, and Namibia also achieved while former champions Egypt, Ghana, Algeria, and Tunisia failed to win a single game.
The underdogs’ story extends to personnel too because who could have thought a tournament that has the current CAF African Footballer of the Year, Victor Osimhen (Nigeria), two-time winners Mohammed Salah (Egypt), and Sadio Mane (Senegal), one of the top scorer in the German Bundesliga Seirhou Guirassay (Guinea), Sebastian Haller (Ivory Coast) and a host of superstars, it will be a certain 34-year-old who plays as a right back for his club Inter City in the Spanish lower division Emilio Nsue will be the top scorer on this competition so far with 5 goals after three games played.
With the 16 teams for Round 16 known and some mouthwatering ties to look forward to, we hope what we experienced in the group stage is the tip of the iceberg of what the knockout rounds have for us.