Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals. Morocco-Egypt Mohamed Salah - Achraf Hakimi
The day starts at 17.00h with Gambia-Cameroon. It continues at 20.00h with Burkina Faso-Tunisia.
Tomorrow, Sunday, at 16.00h, Egypt-Morocco; and at 20.00h, Senegal-Equatorial Guinea.
It has been a very even Africa Cup. Matches with few goals and very evenly matched.
In the first phase, only Cameroon-Ethiopia (4-1) or Tunisia-Mauritania (4-0) were not very balanced matches.
The big surprise was the elimination of Algeria, the reigning champions, in what seemed to be an easy group: Côte d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea and Sierra Leone.
But the reality is that Equatorial Guinea is in the quarter-finals.
Another surprise was the qualification of Comoros, leaving Ghana out. Later, in the Round of 16, Comoros lost to Cameroon.
The latter open the quarter-finals today against Gambia. Cameroon have one of the best teams in the tournament with Bayer Munich's Choupo-Moting, Lyon's Toko Ekambi, Napoli's Zambo Anguissa and Ajax goalkeeper Andre Onana. Opposing them will be a Gambia side whose players are not at the level of Cameroon's, although Darboe, Barrow, Colley and Bobb play in Calcio, for Roma, Bologna, Sampdoria and Piacenza respectively. It would be a surprise if Cameroon were not in the semi-finals.
The Burkina Faso-Tunisia match will follow. In principle, Tunisia are favourites, but given the problems they had in qualifying, we have our doubts. With Nigeria in the Round of 16 they also struggled a lot despite being down to ten men in the 66th minute. Without having any big stars, Tunisia got rid of the team of Iheanacho of Leicester, Chukwueze of Villareal and Iwobi of Everton.
Burkina Faso have a good team and their presence in the quarter-finals was a surprise. Their most outstanding player is Traoré of Aston Villa.
The first match on Sunday will be Egypt-Morocco.
Egypt has a team of players who play in major leagues and for teams such as Galatasaray, Stuttgart, Arsenal and Liverpool. Their star player and the great hope for Egyptian fans is Mohamed Salah, considered one of the five best players in the world and who had a magnificent season this year.
Up against them is a Morocco team with several players from Sevilla C.F.: Bounou, En-Nesiry and Munir El Haddadi, and from the main European leagues. But the one who is standing out the most and scoring goals is Achraf Hakimi. He is both a winger and a winger with a lot of goals.
Morocco had no problem in the group stage and also in eliminating Malawi.
Egypt lost to Nigeria, won narrowly against both Guinea-Bissau and Sudan. In the Round of 16, they qualified on penalties against Côte d'Ivoire.
In principle, Morocco, because of their record in this championship, are better for this match, but Egypt have Salah who can unbalance the match at any moment. A very even match.
The quarter-final between Senegal and Equatorial Guinea closes the quarter-finals. The Guineans are one of this year's surprises. They played a part in the elimination of Algeria by beating them 1-0 in the group stage. They then eliminated Mali on penalties in the Round of 16.
They face the Senegal of Liverpool star Sadio Mané, Napoli's Koulibaly, Paris Saint Germain's Idrissa Gueye and Diallo, Leicester's Mendy, Bayer Munich's Sarr and Chelsea's European champion goalkeeper Mendy, among others.
Akapo, a Cadiz player, is the best player of modest Equatorial Guinea. Senegal, clear favourites in this match.
Our betting pool is that Cameroon against Gambia, Tunisia against Burkina Faso and Senegal against Equatorial Guinea are clear favourites.
And the big Egypt-Morocco match will go to Morocco because they have a better team than Egypt. Salah seems to us to be in too little company for a match against a very consistent Morocco.
Be careful, anything can happen, this is football.