Come Sunday, February 11 the African Cup of Nations, AFCON 2023 will come to an end with a winner emerging.
If the host wins, they will be winning it for the third time but if Nigeria wins it, it will be a repeat of 2013 AFCON in South Africa that played out, and the odds seem to favour the Super Eagles of Nigeria.
In 2013, Nigeria was in the same group with Burkina-Faso, they played out a 1-1 draw in the first game. They drew Zambia by 1-1 before defeating Ethiopia by 2-0 to finish second in the group stage with five points behind Burkina-Faso.
In the quarter final, the Super Eagles led by late Stephen Keshi, against all odds defeated Cote d’Ivoire with Didier Drogba, who was on fire by 2-1. The team went ahead to beat Mali by 4-1 in the semi final to meet their group “teammate” Burkina-Faso again in the final. The Super Eagles defeated them by 1-0 courtesy of Sunday Mba’s goal in the 40th minute.
Also, the team did not score up to three goals, it is either one or two goals all through to the final and even the win against Burkina Faso was 1-0.
The same scenario is playing out in this year’s AFCON with Super Eagles qualifying as the second in their group which also had Cote d’Ivoire.
Super Eagles will be playing Cote d’Ivoire in the final, a team that was in the same group with them in Group A. They also finished second with seven behind Equatorial Guinea which have seven points with more goals.
The Jose Peseiro-led team also did not score up to three goals, it is either one or two goals. In the group stage, they score a total of four goals (Equatorial Guinea 1-1, defeated Cote d’ivoire 1-0 and beat Guinea Bissau 2-0).
In the second round, they defeated Cameroon by 2-0 and also beat Angola by 1-0 in the quarter final. The Super Eagles push aside South Africa by 1-0 in the semi-final.
Another thing that played out in 2013 was that the team did not enjoy support from anywhere because it struggled to qualify. There was also information that return-tickets were already purchased for the team before the quarter final match against Cote d’Ivoire because of forms of Drogba and the duo of Kolo and Yaya Toure that year.
This year’s AFCON is different, although some fans did not believe in the team because of the losses the Super Eagles had in the past especially in the world cup qualifiers, the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF and its board, the Sports Minister and the Ministry were solidly behind the team hence the confidence repose in the technical crew and the players and the results churned out thus far which has since attracted the fans back to the team.
