A comfortable 3-0 victory for the defending champions, Côte d’Ivoire, over Burkina Faso on Tuesday evening completes the highest-powered set of quarter-finalists the Cup of Nations has ever known. Seven of the last eight are former champions; between them they have won 22 Cups of Nations. It is the first time all eight quarter-finalists are in the top 10 African sides in the Fifa rankings.
It’s been a strangely predictable tournament so far, at least after Ghana failed to qualify; the nearest to a surprise in the last 16 was Mali’s win over Tunisia and Cameroon’s victory over South Africa. After the lengthy preamble in a format lacking in jeopardy, the tournament needs the giants to deliver the appropriate payoff.
In the quarter-finals Côte d’Ivoire will face Egypt, a team they haven’t beaten at a Cup of Nations since 1990. They lost to them on penalties in both the final in 2006 and in the last 16 four years ago, but the defeat that really stings is Egypt’s 4-1 success in the semi-final in Kumasi, Ghana, in 2008, the game in which Amr Zaki embarrassed Kolo Touré. This Côte d’Ivoire is not as star-studded as that one, but it is pleasingly coherent and has in Amad Diallo, who scored the first against Burkina Faso and set up the second for Evann Guessand, a great unlocker of defences. Egypt, meanwhile, remain stodgier than they ought to be, yet to work out a way of integrating both Mohamed Salah and Omar Marmoush.
Earlier in the day Algeria, who have perhaps looked the best-balanced side so far, beat DR Congo with a 119th-minute goal from Adil Boulbina. In the quarter-finals they meet the only other side to have won four out of four, Nigeria – albeit Nigeria did not need extra-time to beat Mozambique. It’s a game with history: Nigeria beat Algeria in the 1980 final and Algeria beat Nigeria in the 1990 final, but Algeria have won the past four meetings, including the 2019 Cup of Nations semi-final.
There’s little doubt that Nigeria have been the best attacking side so far, scoring 12 goals in their four games, with Ademola Lookman and Victor Osimhen linking superbly, but they have looked shaky defensively, their only clean sheet coming in the last 16 against an overawed and overpowered Mozambique. Under Vladimir Petkovic, the Bosnian former Switzerland coach, Algeria are a flexible and intelligent side, who will not be as willing Mozambique were to let Alex Iwobi dictate the pace.
In terms of Cups of Nations won, Morocco stand above only the sole non-champions, Mali, in the list of sides left in the tournament, but they are the only African team ever to reach a World Cup semi-final and they are the hosts and favourites. That, though, brings pressure and expectation, and that has clearly affected Morocco so far. It’s also why the coach, Walid Regragui, was booed by the crowd at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium before the last-16 win over Tanzania – despite having lost only four of his 46 games as manager – one of those was a World Cup semi-final to France, one the third-place playoff and one a dead rubber against South Africa; only the defeat to South Africa in the Cup of Nations last 16 two years ago was in a game that both mattered and in which Morocco were not significant underdogs.
But Regragui has become the personification of the government’s vast investment in football ahead of the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco will co-host. That is not universally popular, leading to street protests before the tournament. The sense of skewed priorities has only intensified after the floods in Safi that killed at least 37 people. The spending was being questioned even before the tournament; as Morocco have produced a strung of nervously dour displays, those doubts have only been heightened.
Why, given the current crop of exciting and gifted players, does Regragui maintain his safety-first approach? Not only have billions been spent on the World Cup and associated infrastructure, but the football is boring. After all, what was effectively a B team won the Arab Cup in December under Tarik Sektioui playing far more progressive football. Sektioui looms as a potential successor.
Cameroon, in that sense, are perhaps the worst opponents Morocco could face. They arrived at the tournament in chaos, with two different coaches having submitted separate squad lists to CAF. But after Samuel Eto’o, the president of the Cameroonian football federation, won his power struggle with the sports ministry, they have found an unexpected spirit and coherence under David Pagou, and play extremely direct and dynamic football. Unusually for the second-most successful side in the continent’s history, they are playing with almost no expectations, and they have a resolve that means they are unlikely to be fazed by the partisan atmosphere in the Moulay Abdelleh.
Senegal, the other one-time winners left in the competition, have the best squad of any of the sub-Saharan contenders, but with a fleet of options are yet to get the balance quite right in midfield. They face their neighbours Mali, a country with whom they were briefly joined in the Mali Federation in the first months after independence from France. Mali’s list of Cup of Nations honours comprises a solitary final, back in 1972, but under the well-travelled Belgian Tom Saintfiet they have proved extremely hard to break down, drawing all four games so far in the competition.
Even the starriest list of quarter-finalists needs a stubborn outsider.
