Africa Cup of Nations 2025 – Saturday 3rd January Matches Tips, TV and Betting Preview

The knockout stages of the Africa Cup of Nations gets underway on Saturday when the first two round of 16 matches take place out in Morocco with a couple of potential champions looking to make it into the quarter finals.

Senegal are very much one of the fancied runners in the competition and they are one of the teams on show on Saturday while two others compete in the second game so we should be guaranteed a decent quality throughout.

Senegal vs Sudan (16.00 – 4seven)

The opening match of the knockout stages of the competition sees the former champions Senegal looking to make it into the last eight when they go up against one of the lowest ranked sides left in the tournament in the form of Sudan.

Sudan have done well to get this far, doing so courtesy of a shock win over Equatorial Guinea in their second match but either side of that, when they came up against one of the top two seeds in their group they were found out in fairly comfortable style and it would be a surprise if that isn’t the case here too. Senegal have looked very much like one of the favourites to win the competition so far. They have a pair of 3-0 wins under their belt and a 1-1 draw with DR Congo which isn’t exactly a disgrace. Senegal are pretty warm favourites for this match and it is hard to argue with that. There is a clear gulf in class between these two sides and even the suspension of Kalidou Koulibaly isn’t likely to make much difference. Senegal are one of the highest scorers in the competition and have plenty of attacking prowess in their side whereas Sudan have been exposed by both Algeria and Burkina Faso so far. I think Senegal win this and to add enough juice into the price to make backing them worthwhile I’ll add over 2.5 goals to the mix too.

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Mali v Tunisia (19.00 – 4seven)

The second match of the day looks much the more competitive one of the two as two teams who will believe they can go all the way meet when the Group A runners-up take on the Group C runners-up when Mali go up against Tunisia.

Anyone expecting a classic here might be disappointed it has to be said. These two sides have played six matches in the competition between them and drawn four of them and so it would be no surprise to anyone were extra time to be needed here. Both teams struggle a bit for goals but are generally defensively tight, although Tunisia were exposed by Nigeria in one of their group matches. There hasn’t been anything shown from Mali to suggest that they will be able to do likewise against this opposition. To be fair to Tunisia, they did score six goals in their three group games so if there is a winner in 90 minutes here I would fancy it to be them so I wouldn’t put anyone off a bet on the draw no bet market but in truth I don’t really trust either of these enough to commit to a bet.

Tips

Back Senegal to win and over 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with Coral