African Cup of Nations 2010 Preview

Posted on 06. Jan, 2010 by C.Scrumptious in Football, Sports

This Sunday marks the beginning of the 27th African Cup of Nations tournament. Being held in Angola, the competition will not fail to disappoint as the competition to become champions has heated up. In recent years teams like Ivory Coast have stepped up their quality to become true contenders whilst teams like Senegal have fallen off having failed to qualify for this edition.

Set to a background of colourful and noisy crowds, the competition never fails to provide drama; last time around 10 man Ghana beat Nigeria 2-1 in the quarter finals whilst Cameroon having been hammered 4-2 in their opening game by Egypt were unlucky to lose 1-0 in the final to the Pharaohs.

The group draws have been kind to us the spectators with group B pitting Michael Essien’s Ghana against Didier Drogba’s Ivory Coast and Emmanuel Adebayor’s Togo whilst group C see’s the former power house Nigeria clash with reigning champions Egypt.

A number of established international stars will be highlighting their talents at the competition but some of the lesser known talents you should keep an eye out for will be:

Dominic Adiyiah: The Ghanian striker won the Golden boot and MVP at Fifa’s u20 World Cup last year and along with Ransford Osei carries the goal scoring hopes of a nation. Age will not be a factor for the Milan striker as his strength and pace will make him a constant threat.

Victor Obinna: The 22 year old Inter Milan forward lead Nigeria to a silver medal at the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing with 3 goals. And his goals during World Cup qualifying were invaluable in helping Nigeria reach South Africa. Nigeria will need him and the creative Peter Odemwingie firing on all cylinders if they are make any impact.

Mourad Meghni: Dubbed the new Zidane after leading France to the u17 World Cup in 2001, Meghni went back to playing for the country of his father’s origin winning his first cap in August 2009. With an excellent right foot and technique he will be looking to show the world why he was so highly rated in his early years.

Egypt will be obvious favourites having won the competition the previous two times and 6 times in total but do not discount Ghana or the Ivory Coast who both have strong squads whilst Nigeria and Cameroon will provide outside shots.

Eurosport will broadcast all 32 matches of the competition live and in high definition with group games being shown at 5pm & 7.30pm whilst the knockout stages being shown at 5pm and 7.45pm.