10 Facts About AFCON 2023 You Need To Know

 

Afcon2023 Ivorian ladies watching the finals against the Supereagles of Nigeria.

Afcon2023 happens to be the best Afcon ever organized in the continent. All the 24 teams participated to their highest level. The competition was organized by Ivory Coast with high quality stadia, good infrastructure and no need to complain.

In this competition many surprises were recorded; Morocco that played the semi finals of the world cup in Qatar 2022 was eliminated in the second round followed by Cameroon, Senegal and Egypt which were termed the most favorites of the competition.

Ghana was the first high profile team to be eliminated in round 1 of the competition. South Africa dismantled Morocco and also stopped them from advancing to the next rounds of the competition. It should be noted that 9 south African first 11 play for local team in South Africa, Sundowns United but managed to play the semi finals of the AFCON2023 but won the third place under Hugo Broos who once won the competition in 2017 with the indomitable lions of Cameroon.

Osimhen in a tussle with Ndicka

Cameroon played only 4 matches with the highest ball possession but could not make it to the 8th finals of the competition while Nigeria had the worst ball possession but succeeded to play the finals of AFCON2023 with Ivory Coast but lost to the host nation. Nwabali Stanley who is a premier league goalie in South Africa benched the all time Nigerian Francis Uzoho who plays in Cyprus premier league.

4 nations sacked their coaches and others went on retirement during the competition. Ivory Coast sacked their coach and he was replaced by the 2nd local coach who managed to play the experienced players and won the competition. The black stars had clashes with the journalism team and the head coach and the next day the coach was sacked.

The South African Goalkeeper Ronwen Williams won the best goalie of the competition and being his first participation, he stopped 6 penalties. This has never happed in the history of AFRICAN football While the Nigerian central back Troos Ekong won best player of the competition but many opposes this claiming that the winner was supposed to be Fofana, the Ivorian central midfielder.

Match prediction by Nshing Rooney of NshingTv.

Young Emerse Fae of Ivory coast emerged the best coach of the competition. When the French coach Jean Louis Gasset was sacked, he took charge and staged a comeback to defend the last 2021 title holders Senegal and sent them packing.

Finally, teams like Mauritania, Namibia, Cape Vert, Equatorial Guinea, DRC Congo, Mali, Guinea and Gambia didn't smile with any bigger guns of the competition. Congratulations africa for such a beautiful competition without any form of cheating.