For the defending champions, who had a clean sweep of the group stages, making the quarterfinals of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations should be a routine passage but Senegal have the hosts, Cote D’Ivoire and the odds to fight against. For the records, no Africa Cup of Nations defending champion has qualified for the quarterfinals of the next edition sine Egypt in 2010; the champions have either failed to qualify for the next tournament or failed to make it past the round of 16. In 2012, Egypt failed to qualify for the showpiece while Zambia crashed out at the group stages in 2013. Champions in 2013, Nigeria failed to qualify for the 2015 tourney while Cote d’Ivoire were ousted at the group stages of the 2017 edition as champions. Cameroon got booted out in the round of 16 in 2019 while Algeria did not make it past the group stages in 2021.
Across the three group stage matches, Senegal scored eight goals and conceded just one, against Cameroon. More impressive for the Senegalese team is that seven different players have scored for them thus far in the campaign, a reflection of the solid team effort the Lions of Teranaga are putting into the daunting task of becoming just the fourth team to retain the Africa Cup of Nations title. At the 2021 AFCON, Senegal recorded three successive two-goal wins between the round of 16 and the final which they won on penalties against Egypt. The Teranga Lions will be hoping for a repeat of such feat considering how prolific they are thus far in the tournament (8 goals in 3 matches) and how vulnerable their opponents are (5 goals in 3 matches). Aliou Cisse’s men go into the tie as favourites and are expected to advance to the quarterfinals.
Following the humiliating defeat to Equatorial Guinea, host nation, Cote D’Ivoire sacked coach Jean-Louis Gasset while failing in an audacious bid to secure the services of Herve Renard for the remainder of the tournament. The huge task of beating the defending champions falls on the shoulders of Emerse Fae, who is the interim coach for the host nation. More concerning for Cote d’Ivoire will be how to keep Senegal’s offensive talents at bay considering their defensive frailties. It will be intriguing to see how the Ivorians rebound from the awful performance against Equatorial Guinea while for Senegal, they have to be at their fluid best to break the recent odds stacked against the defending champions of the Africa Cup of Nations.
