All of Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Algeria and Cameroon all failed to win in their first games.
In each group all teams will play 3 matches so losing their first game puts the teams at a massive set back.
Coming into the competition both Nigeria and Ghana are said to be favourites so it wouldn’t be a surprise if they bounce back easily and both get a win in their next game, which is a must. Ghana will face Mohammed Salah’s Egypt on Wednesday whilst Nigeria will face Ivory Coast at the same time.
With Ghana and Egypt being in the same group and both team failing to win their opener there is now a very high chance one of the nations will not be making it out. For context Egypt were in the last AFCON final where they lost to Senegal.
The teams that have managed to take point off these nations are; Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Cape Verde, Guinea and Mozambique. None of these teams have ever won the competition. Cape Verde managed the biggest shock by beating Chris Hughton’s Ghana 2-1 where Jamiro Monteiro and a 92nd minute winner by Garry Rodrigues were in the score sheet.
So far only current AFCON Champions, Senegal, and Morocco have managed to complete an easy victory when they went on to win 3-0 against Gambia and Tanzania respectively and sit top of their groups.
Senegal's Lamine Camara was especially impressive, scoring twice against Gambia on his AFCON debut; Azzedine Ounahi was Morocco's stand out performer, dictating play and firing in their second goal.
In all major tournaments there is always one or two teams that can create an underdog story, but in under a week we have already had many to talk about. With the amount of upsets there has been already is just shows how much the competition is growing.
Can an underdog win the African Cup Of Nations?
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