Amr Obaid (Cairo)
After the “World Cup” and “Euro”, experts classify the African Cup of Nations as the third strongest international tournament for teams, due to the bright stars that the “African Continent” contains in the skies of world football, as well as the results and achievements that African teams have presented throughout their history in major tournaments. Impressive, the latest of which is the Moroccan national team’s fourth place in the 2022 World Cup.
It would not be strange for “Alkan” to catch the attention of millions of football fans around the world, especially since it includes teams whose current marketing value is estimated at more than 2 billion euros, specifically 2.69 billion, and if the “Atlas Lions” are considered the “first” team in Africa, in terms of In the international classification, where it ranks 13th, 3 places behind an ancient team like Germany, Morocco has the highest marketing value among all the teams participating in the African Cup, with 347.4 million euros.
The “African Continent” has 4 teams in the top 30 places in the FIFA classification, where Senegal appears in 20th place in the world, then Tunisia is in 28th place, ahead of Algeria, which is ranked 30th, and the Egyptian team is among the “Big Five” in Africa, with its presence in… Ranked 33rd globally. In terms of marketing value, Nigeria ranks second after Morocco, with a value of 335 million euros, followed by Côte d’Ivoire with 334.58, then Senegal with 274.5 million!
Despite attempts to expand the selection of Egyptian national team players, the “Pharaohs” has the “old” list in that tournament, as it tops the list of the oldest among all the teams, with an average of 28.9 years, relying on experience, with the presence of many of its current members in the “CAN” final. Twice in 2017 and 2019, despite losing in each of them, followed by the Namibia national team with an average age of 28 years, while the defending champion, Senegal, has a group of players that appear with a lower average age of 26.9, compared to 26.8 for the hosts, Côte d’Ivoire, and the Moroccan list recorded an average of 26.6. One year compared to 26.4 years for Nigeria, while Cameroon is the fourth youngest team in the tournament, with an average of 25.4 years, compared to 25.1 years for Burkina Faso and Tanzania, and Equatorial Guinea remains the youngest ever, with an average of 24.7 years.
At the level of coaches, Senegalese Aliou Cisse is the oldest with his country among all the technical managers in the African Cup, as he led the “Lions of Teranga” for 8 years and 10 months, during which he achieved wonderful achievements, as he gifted Senegal the first title in the African Cup of Nations in the last edition, After finishing runner-up in the 2019 tournament, he also led the “Lions” to the World Cup finals twice in a row, in 2018 and 2022, and succeeded in reaching the round of 16 in the last Qatari World Cup. Algerian Djamel Belmadi also spent 5 years and 5 months as the leader of the “Desert Warriors” and was crowned champion. Nations 2019, while the Moroccan Ould Regragui only spent one year and 4 months with the “Atlas Lions”, he achieved fourth place in the World Cup, and is striving strongly to regain the African title that has been absent since 1976, while the Irishman Chris Hughton is considered the “newest”. Among the tournament's coaches, he officially took over the leadership of the Ghana national team nearly 10 months ago!
Finally, the global “Opta” network published a report on the “supercomputer’s” predictions for the name of the team that won the African Cup of Nations, where it was likely that Senegal would retain the title for the second time in a row by 12.3%, followed by “host” Côte d’Ivoire with 11.7%, compared to 10.9% for the national team. Morocco and 10.3% for its Algerian counterpart, which is the “quartet” most likely according to Opta’s expectations to win the “Alkan” title, and the Egyptian team comes after them with a lower percentage of 8.4%!
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