Amr Obaid (Cairo)
The hosts of the two continental cups, in Africa and Asia, qualified for the final match in each tournament, an event that has only been repeated a few times in the history of the “simultaneous tournaments” between the two continents, which witnessed the holding of the “Cannes” and “Asia” in the same year 13 previous times, and no Here and there, the two “land owners” reach the “simultaneous” final only 3 times, and the hosts have only celebrated the title together once in 56 years.
The year 1968 was the first to combine the African championship and its Asian counterpart in one “calendar”, whether one was held in the summer and the other in the winter. The “Africa” and the “Asian” championship met every 4 years, with the exception of the decade in which Asia changed the dates of its championships to odd years. Until the “African Continent” followed suit recently, despite its insistence on celebrating its national teams every two years.
The Qatar and Côte d'Ivoire teams are armed with the fans, the ground and the atmosphere they are accustomed to, to win the cup at the expense of Jordan and Nigeria, but the history of “joint versions” between the two continents may hinder one of them without the other, as the hosts of the two “simultaneous” tournaments did not lift the two cups together except in 1980, only once. When the Kuwaiti national team succeeded in capturing the Asian Cup in its home stadium with a “treble” against South Korea, what is strange and exciting at the same time is that the Nigerian national team won the “Cannes title” in the same year, also with a score of 3/0, at the expense of Algeria.
The Iranian national team had collected the Asian titles in 1968 and 1976, in its stadium and among its fans, while the host did not appear in the final match similar to the two African championships. In 1992, the Japanese national team succeeded in winning the “Asian” championship, which was hosted by the “Samurai” stadiums, at a time when it witnessed… Senegal failed to reach the final of its “version”, which was won by Côte d’Ivoire at the expense of Ghana, with the famous “marathon” of penalty kicks.
On the land of the Emirates, “Al-Abyad” was present in the 1996 final, except that his Saudi brother snatched the Asian Cup from him, but South Africa on the neighboring continent won its first championship at that time, as host and champion, so the two landowners met in the final of the two championships, but the cup caressed one of them and quarreled with the other, and after For 4 years, the Lebanon national team was not part of the final match in its home stadium, while the Nigerian “Eagles” reached the final but did not succeed in overcoming Cameroon.
Then the “third paradox” was repeated, when Tunisia and China reached the final match in the Continental Cups during their hosting of the 2004 tournaments, but the same thing was present, with the “Eagles of Carthage” winning the cup at the expense of Morocco, while the “Dragons” failed against Japan, and in 2015. The Australian national team embraced Asian glory in its stadium, while Equatorial Guinea failed to reach the final of its edition, and did not host the 2019 edition in Africa and Asia within the parties of the two final matches. Will the national teams of Qatar and Côte d’Ivoire succeed in repeating the ancient “shared” history after 44 years?
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