The round of 16 matches continue at the Africa Cup of Nations on Sunday when four more teams take to the field looking to make it through to the quarter finals of an event where the bigger sides are beginning to gather with intent.
We have one of the African powerhouses looking to make it through to the next stage of the competition and three sides who would have been considered outsiders to go deep when the event started a couple of weeks ago.
Equatorial Guinea vs Guinea (17.00)
The first match of the Sunday double header will see a Guinea side who a few smart judges thought could be dark horses for a good run in this tournament going up against probably the surprise package of the competition in the form of Equatorial Guinea.
Equatorial Guinea ended up winning what looked a tough group in the first part of the competition and scored goals regularly and generally looked like a team playing with freedom. Their emphatic demolition of the hosts Ivory Coast in the last group game was a sign of how good they can be and they will certainly fancy their chances in this one. Guinea have come through and were probably better qualifiers than their end group position suggested and if they can get Serhou Guirassy into a position where he can impact the game then they could well be dangerous in the knockout stages too but his injury issue remains a concern for me. If Equatorial Guinea play the way they have in the group stage I think they’ll win but there doubts over whether they’ll do that so I’ll leave this one alone.
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Egypt vs DR Congo (20.00)
The second match of the night sees the African giants of Egypt looking to make it back to the last eight of the competition when they go up against a DR Congo who have looked a whole lot better than their results have suggested so far.
Both teams came second in their group in the first stage of the tournament and you wonder if that means we will need extra time and penalties for this one to be decided but in all three matches Egypt needed goals in the last 20 minutes to get something out of them whereas DR Congo were a lot more comfortable in their games without winning them. It isn’t a bad thing that Egypt go to the end and it suggests the depth they have isn’t as bad as first feared but it does go without saying that they aren’t as good without Mo Salah. Egypt have probably defended better than their goals against tally suggests but DR Congo are creating plenty of chances and if they can find one of those to go in then it might be enough for a team who kept Morocco relatively quiet in the group stage. DR Congo are a little bigger than I would have them but with the draw very much in play on the evidence of the competition so far, I’ll back them without it in the equation.
Tips
Back DR Congo to beat Egypt (DNB) for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Betway
