The knockout stages of the Africa Cup of Nations begins on Sunday evening with the stakes raising significantly out in Cameroon as two of the bigger nations in the continent battle it out along with a couple of dark horses.
We are at the stage of the tournament where extra time will be played should the action finish level after 90 minutes and with a fairly tight tournament so far it would be no surprise if we need the extra 30 minutes at some stage on Sunday.
Burkina Faso vs Gabon (16.00 – Sky Sports Mix)
The opening match of the knockout stage of the competition sees two of the dark horses for the tournament taking each other on when Burkina Faso meet Gabon with one of them progressing to the quarter final and not being far from achieving something special.
Burkina Faso had a bit of a mixed bag in their group with a loss, a win and a draw and in a quirky statistic the three goals they conceded in the first stage were all penalties. I’m not convinced they are as good as their record suggested. Gabon were surprise packages in their group and while they finished behind Morocco in it they came out ahead of Ghana and generally played pretty well throughout their three matches. They won their opening match and then cruised through from there. They might need to step it up from here on in though and it will be interesting to see if they have that in them. This looks a tight affair and I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if this goes beyond 90 minutes but I can’t say I’m confident with anything.
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Nigeria vs Tunisia (19.00 – Sky Sports Mix)
The pick of the two matches on the first day of the knockouts in the tournament is the second one as genuine title contenders Nigeria and Tunisia battle it out for a place in the quarter final where the winner of the first game of the day will be waiting for them.
Tunisia have been a bit of a disappointment so far in this tournament. They were involved in the controversy of the referee and the final whistle in the opening game but they didn’t exactly set the world alight there and then they lost their last group game which meant that they finished third in the group and get a tough test. They did wallop Mauritania in between but that result doesn’t look much right now. Nigeria qualified with the minimum of fuss with three wins from three and the only goal they conceded being a penalty. They look good at both ends of the pitch and I think they’ll have too much for a Tunisia side, who like North African sides do further south in Africa, are flattering to deceive.
Tips
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