Africa Africa Cup Of Nations
The 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, known as the Total 2019 Africa Cup of Nations, is scheduled to be the 32nd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial international men’s football championship of Africa organized by the Confederation of African Football(CAF). The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has selected Egypt as the hosts of the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon). South Africa and Egypt were the only two nations to submit bids for the tournament, which is only two months away from kicking off, after Cameroon were dumped as hosts late last year.
This year’s tournament will be unique because the competition has been expanded to 24 nations and has moved from the usual January slot to June. Moreover, Egypt last hosted the Afcon in 2006 – for South Africa it was 2013, they’ve hosted on four occasions in total compared to South Africa’s two.
The competition will be held from 21 June to 19 July 2019, as per the decision of the CAF Executive Committee on 20 July 2017 to move the Africa Cup of Nations from January/February to June/July for the first time. It will also be the first Africa Cup of Nations expanded from 16 to 24 teams. Hence, African soccer fans can finally book their flights to the 2019 African Cup of Nations after Egypt was confirmed as the host of this year’s tournament.
The draw took place on 12 April 2019, and the groups will be as follows:
Egypt-Zimbabwe will be the opening match of this Total AFCON 2019.
In Group B, the Nigerian Super Eagles will face two teams that qualified for the first time at this AFCON: Burundi and Madagascar.
One of the tournament’s favorites, Sadio Mané’s Senegal, will play in Group C against Tanzania and Kenya.
In Group D, Hervé Renard will meet Côte d’Ivoire again. The Atlas Lions will have to beware of South Africa and the small thumb, Namibia
In Group E, the Carthage Eagles will face the Mali Eagles and the Mauritania Muribitoun, for whom this is their first participation in the CAN, and Angola.
The Cameroonian defending champion will face the Black Stars of Ghana, Benin and Guinea Bissau.
The league will made up of 16 rounds leading to Quarter finals and then Semi Finals. Teams reaching the Semi Final will fight for the 3rd Place Match and later the Grand final will decide the winner of AFCON 2019 in Egypt. Moreover, if asked who will win the Afcon trophy this year, Cameroon have enough quality players to go all the way to the final and win the trophy. Yet we need to wait for more as each team is preparing themselves to win BIG. As we should not forget that Cameroon won their fifth title after defeating seven-time champions Egypt 2–1 in the final of 2017.