Teams to watch at the African Cup of Nations
The disastrous effects of the global pandemic are also affecting the world of football, causing serious inconvenience to individual players, their families and, above all, their teams, which may be forced to give up some of their best players at a crucial stage of the season. The months between the end of the year and the beginning of February are the months when teams start to get serious, aiming for the top of the league table to confirm their role as protagonists in their respective championships. Each match, in this phase, could be decisive: not only for the direct clashes with the direct antagonists, with whom they will fight until the end for the conquest of the championships but also for the encounters with the middle or low ranking teams, on which a good slice of the final outcome of a season could depend. The African Cup of Nations is a competition with a cruel fate: like all national team leagues, this cup is frowned upon by most European clubs, as it forces them to do without African national players for a few weeks. Often, these are crucial players, regular starters to whom the fate of an entire season is inextricably linked.
A peculiar event
In the major European leagues, the African Cup of Nations is almost unanimously seen as an extremely troublesome event, especially because it is played in the middle of a season - and not at the end of the championships, as is normally the case for European Championships, World Cups and other similar competitions reserved for national teams -, and club teams, over the years, have become more and more reluctant to release their players to their respective national teams, even threatening not to let their most valuable players leave. The situation for many European clubs has been resolved with a compromise of sorts: African players will be allowed to participate in the African Cup of Nations, but their departure will be delayed as long as possible, in order to avoid possible complications due to the Omicron variant and the emergence of new positive cases.
The two European tournaments most affected from this point of view are the Premier League and the Serie A: in fact, two fundamental Liverpool players, such as Mohammed Salah (Egypt) and Sadio Manè (Senegal), a crucial Milan player, Frank Kessie (Ivory Coast) and an important pillar of Napoli, the Cameroonian Anguissa, will take part in the African Cup of Nations.
Four favourites among others
Regardless of the reactions of the individual club teams, and despite all the complications caused by Covid-19, the African Cup of Nations will be played this year anyway, and among its protagonists will be some top players from some of the best clubs in the world. The tournament has not been played for three years and was postponed last year because of the Covid-19 . This year's edition - in which the favourites seem to be Egypt, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Nigeria - will be attended for the first time by Gambia, who in the last few days had given up a preparatory friendly against Algeria (the defending champions), due to the pandemic. The event will take place in the following way: the 24 participating teams have been divided into six groups of four teams, and the first two of each group (together with the four best thirds) will advance to the round of 16, a knockout phase.
Despite having to do without one of their stars, Napoli striker Victor Osimhen, Nigeria still seem to be among the favourites for the final victory. In order to bet with confidence on their national team, Nigerian gamblers can choose the SBO online portal, where they will surely find interesting options for their online entertainment. On these platforms, users will find all the most useful information to place their bets in total peace of mind, in a perfectly safe and legal manner, without any unpleasant surprises.
The African Cup of Nations will bring together the best teams from an entire continent, engaging them in an unpredictable tournament where the final outcome is never a foregone conclusion. For spectators, this tournament can be a valuable distraction from Covid, but also a useful opportunity to feed their sporting passion.
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