Two years and a day since Senegal lifted the African Cup of Nations in Cameroon, football’s most passionate continent is about to go at it all over again. As a self-proclaimed international football maniac, I am ready for another month straight of football at its most authentic, fiery and unpredictable. I’m sure to most of you this tournament is nothing but a distraction for your players being sent off mid season (I’m a Liverpool fan, I get it), but this tournament promises be a great one as an entry point for newcomers to following African football. At every World Cup, there is a distinct vibrancy and atmosphere to the African teams and the joyous culture surrounding the way they follow football is inspiring, which certainly translates to this stage. So with that said, I’ve compiled what I think are the five main talking points to watch at the tournament in the Ivory Coast, which was pretty hard given all the different storylines at play.

Can Osimhen Carry Nigeria?

Aside from maybe one man that will be mentioned shortly, Victor Osimhen is about as good as it gets in African football. He was the driving force behind Napoli’s first Scudetto since the days of Diego Maradona and despite being slightly mired by injury, he’s carried his goalscoring into this season. In terms of true numbers nines, I would probably only put Harry Kane and Erling Haaland ahead of Osimhen at this point in time. He’s pacey, physical, clinical and is skilled on the ball and really has few weaknesses to his game. Having not played in Cameroon, Osimhen’s presence in this tournament alone would warrant his inclusion on the list, but Nigeria are probably *the* team to watch overall, and not necessarily for the right reasons. In terms of talent, they are up there with pretty much any team competing at the tournament, even with brutal injuries to Taiwo Awoniyi, Victor Boniface and Wilfried Ndidi. Their squad for the tournament is full of familiar faces for fans of English football from Ademola Lookman to Alex Iwobi and from Kelechi Iheanacho to Calvin Bassey. In recent times, though, despite all their talent, Nigeria have been perennial underachievers. They failed to qualify for the World Cup in Qatar and have gone four games without a win in matches against Saudi Arabia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Guinea in the build-up to this tournament. In truth, preparations for this tournament could only get worse if Osimhen were to get injured, with which their hopes would die completely. But as it stands, with all the talent they have, they could still make a deep run. Osimhen is most people’s favourite to win the golden boot, and if he can get into a goalscoring run, teams will be quick to fear this disjointed but talented Nigeria team. They are in a fairly manageable Group A, with their match against hosts the Ivory Coast likely to decide the group winner.

Salah’s Quest For Glory

And here is the other main man in African football. Aside from his patchy penalty record, Mohamed Salah’s season thus far has been pretty much faultless. Though it would be nice to see him more involved in games at times, his goal and assist contributions speak for themselves and since his arrival to Liverpool in the summer of 2017 he has been one of the world’s premier and most consistent goalscorers and has won everything there is to win. His time with the national team has been a bit of a different story though. Egypt are this tournament’s most successful ever team, but have not won it since 2010. Though the North Africans have reached the final in two of the last three AFCONs, they’ve not been able to get over the line in either with the other tournament being a humbling round of 16 exit on home soil. His only World Cup appearance to date in Russia 2018 was disastrous as Egypt lost all three of their group games. As if their penalty shootout loss to Senegal in the 2021 AFCON final wasn’t enough heartbreak for the team, they missed out on the World Cup to the same team in the same manner in their third round qualifying playoff. Now Egypt are led by Rui Vitoria, an experienced coach who has had an excellent start to his career at the national team, winning 12 of his 14 games in charge. The supporting cast for Egypt are not exactly world-beaters but there is a good amount of quality and experience in the likes of Arsenal’s Mohamed Elneny and former West Brom centre back Ahmed Hegazy. With Eintracht Frankfurt striker Omar Marmoush in great form as well, there will be hopes that he can ease the goalscoring burden on Salah. At 31 but still at the top of his game, Salah will have a chip on his shoulder to achieve international glory that he has come so close to in his career but inevitably found just out of reach. Egypt are listed as 5th favourites for the title according to oddschecker, but I would fancy them to make a run to at least the semi-finals. Of course, the matchup I want to see more than any other at this tournament is Egypt vs Senegal round three. Now that would be spicy.

Andre Onana and Rigobert Song

Andre Onana’s turbulent start to life at Manchester United seems rather quaint compared to his time with the Cameroonian national team. In the form of his life then at Inter Milan and certainly the country’s best player, the goalkeeper left his team’s World Cup squad mid-tournament on November 29th 2022 after being suspended by the country’s football federation. Reports came out that manager Rigobert Song had asked Onana repeatedly to not play the ball out from the back and to stay inside his box which Onana had taken issue with, given that distribution is one of his biggest strengths. Other reports surfaced that Onana had asked not to play in their second game, which was what led to his suspension. Regardless of what happened, there was clearly bad blood between Onana and his head coach and shortly after this revelation, he announced his retirement from international football aged just 26. Then, in September of last year, just four months before the start of this tournament, Onana announced he was coming out of international retirement and wanted to play for Cameroon again. That wasn’t the end of it as it was reported he had made ANOTHER U-turn on his decision at the last moment and that he would be playing two games in two days, one for United before flying to the Ivory Coast and playing one for Cameroon. Here we are, three days before the tournament’s start and it seems that the Onana soap opera has concluded with his flying out to the training camp at the same time as all his teammates and joining the squad. That said, it’s one of those situations where nothing is off-limits and Cameroon will be absolutely worth a watch, even if only for the possibility for disaster within the squad. Onana’s club form has been patchy at best, so if he continues to go rogue against his manager and/or makes repeated mistakes, it will be interesting to see if that history of clashing between he and Song rears its head again. Cameroon are in a tricky group too, alongside defending champions Senegal and a Guinea side which boasts a good amount of talent including Stuttgart sensation Serhou Guirassy, who deserves an honourable mention for this list.

Senegal’s Period of Transition

Senegal are a tricky team to place. As defending champions, they understandably are ranked among the favourites to win the tournament and on balance I think that’s fair, but this is a very different team to the one that won it all just over two years ago. Talismen Sadio Mane and Kalidou Koulibaly were both at the top of their games at Liverpool and Napoli respectively and goalkeeper Edouard Mendy was in a remarkable purple patch where he would go on to win the Champions League with Chelsea that year as one of their star performers. Fast forward two years and all three stars have been shipped off to the Saudi Pro League. While their best players from that run are no longer at their best they, as well as their popular head coach Aliou Cisse, are still present which will be deeply important to their hopes on multiple levels. For one thing, eight of the starting XI from that final are in the squad to go to the Ivory Coast and the mix of continuity and experience of winning tournament football is almost unmatched in the competition. And one thing they boast that they didn’t to this extent in 2021 is a new generation of talented younger players coming through. The one that will be most familiar to Premier League watchers is Tottenham’s 21-year-old Pape Matar Sarr who has absolutely excelled under Ange Postecoglou this season and Chelsea’s 23-year-old striker Nicolas Jackson, who has not always been convincing but still has a decent goals-to-game ratio. While he has struggled to really star since his move to Marseille, Iliman Ndiaye is still a greatly talented footballer and for a hipster pick, Metz’s 20-year-old midfielder Lamine Camara has drawn a lot of attention for his performances in France this year. While some of their big names may be slightly over the hill, I wouldn’t put it past Senegal to repeat their feat of 2021 at this tournament thanks to their mix of youth and experience giving them one of the most balanced squads on paper.

Pressure On Morocco

If Lionel Messi finally winning his first World Cup title was the story of the 2022 World Cup, Morocco’s miraculous journey to the semi-finals, beating Belgium, Spain and Portugal along the way, was certainly the most thrilling subplot. The context makes it even more thrilling, as manager Walid Regragui was only appointed less than two months before the finals began and was immediately doubted and dismissed as “Avocado Head”. By mid December, he was hailed as a genius man manager and had guided Morocco to being the first ever African team to reach the World Cup semi-finals. There was a sense that everyone in Africa was rooting for Morocco once they were the one team remaining, and their victory over Portugal in the quarter-finals was celebrated across the continent. For this tournament, that script has been flipped. After that unimaginable success, there is a target on the team’s back. They are the highest ranked African team in the FIFA world rankings at 13th and the pressure will be on them to win the tournament for the first time since 1976. If they go out early, many will be quick to brandish their World Cup run as a fluke, so the team will be determined to put their best foot forward with all of Africa watching and every team wanting to beat them more than anyone. Luckily for Regragui, they probably pip Senegal for having the best all-around team at the tournament. Their most likely starting lineup would feature players from Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Bayer Leverkusen, West Ham and Sevilla and their squad is blessed with talented players in each position from all around Europe. Youssef En-Nesyri will have a lot of pressure on his shoulders to provide goals, which have not exactly come easily for him this season, but you can expect Morocco to play an attractive style of play with a defensive solidity to back it up. I personally have them as my favourites to win it all, but this really does feel like the most open AFCON in recent memory.

Final Thoughts

There are some really exciting teams I didn’t even get to mention at all unfortunately, particularly Algeria, who I believe could go very far in the tournament in their own right, but that just speaks to the growing depth of African football quality. Players like Guirassy for Guinea are popping up seemingly out of nowhere and making names for themselves and this is the kind of stage for more of that to happen. I hope this blog has convinced you that this competition is more than an inconvenience getting in the way of the Premier League. To me, nothing quite matches international football tournaments, and while it likely won’t quite match the World Cup or Euros in terms of quality, it certainly will in terms of passion and drama. The opening match sees hosts the Ivory Coast host Guinea-Bissau on Saturday at 8pm UK time, be there or be square!