The best 24 teams from the continent will compete in the 34th edition of the African Cup of Nations finals, which will begin this Saturday, January 13 and go through 11th of next month.
This year’s 52 matches will take place in six stadiums located in five different cities: Yamoussoukro, Abidjan, Bouake, Korhogo, and San Pedro.
Two stadiums in Abidjan, Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium (29,000 seats) and Olympic Stadium of Ebimpe (60,000 seats) are set to host the tournament.
One of the most famous football stadiums in Cote D’Ivoire is the 40,000-seat Peace Stadium, which is situated in Bouake, the country’s second-largest city; other notable stadiums include the 20,000-seat Korhogo stadium in Korhogo; the 20,000-seat Laurent Pokou Stadium in San Pedro; and the 20,000-seat Charles Konan Banny stadium in Yamoussoukro.
For the third time in a row, 24 teams from the previous 16 countries will compete in this competition with defending champions Senegal ,record champions Egypt,host Ivory Coast and 2022 FIFA World cup semi finalist Morocco being among the hot favourites to clinch the trophy.
This is Cote d’Ivoire’s second time hosting the Africa Cup of Nations; they did so in 1984.
Egypt leads the list of AFCON champions with seven, followed by Cameroon with five, Ghana with four, Nigeria with three, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Ivory Coast with two apiece.
Both Ghana and Egypt have advanced to nine AFCON finals; of those, Egypt has won seven, Ghana four, while Cameroon has participated in seven and emerged victorious in five of them.
There are no new participants in the Cote d’Ivoire tournament, despite 44 different African countries taking part in the AFCON.
The AFCON trophy has changed three times in its history, which is another amazing statistic. After Cameroon won the previous trophy for the third time in 2000, a new trophy called the African Unity Trophy was commissioned in 2001.
The inaugural trophy was the Abdelaziz Abdallah Salem Trophy.
In addition, the top 15-ranked African nations have all qualified for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, and twelve past African Champions will travel to Cote d’Ivoire for the competition.
Since 1974, all 25 tournament winners have advanced to the current round of the finals; the only winners not to make it were Congo, the 1972 winners.
Every finalist from the 1984 competition has advanced to the Africa Cup of Nations in 2023.
Libya, the runners-up in 1982, are the latest side to make it to the final without having qualified.
This Saturday at 11 p.m. EAT, the Elephants of Ivory Coast, the tournament’s host team, will take on Equitorial Guinea.
