Seven of the eight nations have won the tournament before while Mali take on the role of stubborn outsiders
A
comfortable 3-0 victory for the defending champions, Côte d’Ivoire, over Burkina Faso on Tuesday evening completes the highest-powered set of quarter-finalists the Cup of Nations has ever known. Seven of the last eight are former champions; between them they have won 22 Cups of Nations. It is the first time all eight quarter-finalists are in the top 10 African sides in the Fifa rankings.
It’s been a strangely predictable tournament so far, at least after Ghana failed to qualify; the nearest to a surprise in the last 16 was Mali’s win over Tunisia and Cameroon’s victory over South Africa. After the lengthy preamble in a format lacking in jeopardy, the tournament needs the giants to deliver the appropriate payoff.
In the quarter-finals Côte d’Ivoire will face Egypt, a team they haven’t beaten at a Cup of Nations since 1990. They lost to them on penalties in both the final in 2006 and in the last 16 four years ago, but the defeat that really stings is Egypt’s 4-1 success in the semi-final in Kumasi in 2008, the game in which Amr Zaki embarrassed Kolo Touré. This Côte d’Ivoire is not as star-studded as that one, but it is pleasingly coherent and has in Amad Diallo, who scored the first against Burkina Faso and set up the second for Evann Guessand, a great unlocker of defences. Egypt, meanwhile, remain stodgier than they ought to be, yet to work out a way of integrating both Mohamed Salah and Omar Marmoush.
