[Youssef]

Senegal - Angola

If you’ve been following this tournament closely so far you should by now have been able to make some conclusions/deductions not only depending on the tournament games, but also relating it all to history and qualifying paths of each team.

These two topped their respectve groups 6 & 7 in the qualifiers. Senegal won all 3 home games scoring 11 and conceing 1 in them, but on the road the only drew goalless to Mozambique, 1-1 min Tanzania and lost 0-1 to Bourkina Faso.

Now relate these results to the game from the 1^st round vs Tunisia and you can tell Senegal is overrated an only looked good in comparison because Tunisia were slow and made way too many mistakes in the backline.

Angola also won 3 home games in the qualifiers scoring 12 ans conceding 2, while on the road the only managed to beat neighbouring unseeded Swaziland by 2-0, got a 1-1 draw in Eritrea, and lost 1-2 in Kenya.

Again once we relate this to the draw vs South Africa we can see Angola can score (scored in every game) but have a porous defence line (only 2 clean sheet were against Swaziland in both games).

In fact, Abgola’s defence in no better than Tunisia’s, thus Senegal may –once again- look good upfront, but the question is can they hold their own at the back where Angola’s most strong?

Both teams forfeited 3 pts and settled for just 1 in their respective opening games. Furthermore, Angola in particular was slow upfront and it was Flavio Amado’s worst game in months. The South Africans sspeed matched that of Angoal’s strikers individually and outplayed them in terms of teamwork.

I feel both teams would settle for yet another draw here. For Senegal they would have put the strongest opponents behind them and will be ready to get 3 points on the expense of ambitious but inexperienced Bafana Bafana.

For Angola though, it would be a good result and the live to fight another day, whereas a loss could mean they have their fate to be decided by others feet as well as their own in the final round.

But I fear that Angola cannot rely on a defensive approach either as they would be easily broken down. They need to control the midfiled to keep the Senegalese at bay.

As for the team news, Senegal welcomes back henri camara whom have trained with them and maybe given the green light to participate some time into the game, but basically are expected to field the same starting XI that they did vs Tunisia.

Angola have 2 changes from the line-up that featured against South Africa in the shape of Kalanga replacing injury hit Figueiredo (knee) and Mateus playing in the midfield instead of Mendonca.

Probable Line-ups:

Senegal: Sylva, N'Daw, Diawara, A.Faye, Beye, N'Doye, Sall, Mendy, Diouf, Kamara, Niang.

Angola: Lama, Airosa, Kali, Marques, Yamba Asha, Ze Kalanga, Mateus, Gilberto, Macanga, Flavio, Manucho.

Prediction: While theoretically it should be a Tiranga Lions win, something tells me the Palanca Negra will not go down that easily. A draw is not out of question and the best bet IMHO is a double chance on Senegal (win or draw).

Predicted score-line: 1-1/2-1

Tunisia – South Africa

This is the most Northen nation of the continent vs the most Southern. In recent years South Africa have almost totally vanished off the International scene, while Tunisia may have been present but not as the super power they were once considered to be.

In the qualifiers both teams made it through only thanks to being 2 of the best 3 runner-ups with Tunisia coming 2^nd after SUDAN, and South Africa occupying 2^nd place after Zambia. (How impressive is that for either?)

The results were not at all impressive either, as Tuinisia scored an overall of 13 goals in 6 games, but 7 of which were against helpless Seychelles (whom are as good as their name tells as, btw) while they drew goalless to Mauritius on the road, and barely won 1-0 at home over Sudan before they were beaten in Khartoum by 2-3.

South Africa’s goal tally only summed up to 10, and like Tunisia 7 of them were against Chad. The only other game they managed to win was in Zambia (1-0) while they drew goalless at home to Congo (not DR Congo) and 1-1 on the road before they lost at home to Zambia by 1-3

Now relate those results to the games you saw, and you could easily tell neither team is by any chance a threat to future opponents.

In fact, this group is the weakest by far compared to the other 3, yet is the most competitive as all 4 teams all closely matched. (Benin could have won this group had they been lucky enough to be drawn against this bunch).

The last time tese two went H2H Tunisia won 2-0 thanks to Dos Santos (Egypt 2006)

This group still has all strings wriggled with each of the teams having an almost equal chance of qualifying and this only means that all possibilities are open and anything can happen today.

Based on the above I would supect Tunisia are still the better team of the two, considering they are more experienced, not to mention EXPERTS in time wasting. The thing is Tunisia’s defence is a sham, while South Africa’s offence is blind to target.

South Africa’s will certainly improve with time under Parreira as they gain experience, but it won’t be an instant impression and I can’t help but bet against them today.

Tunisia will have Mehdi Nafti available once more and there are indications that Lemerre will make some changes to his starting line-up, thus Mikari may be in contention for Bekri (Mikari’s better for their attack), and depending on how Lemerre responds to the press/fans anger over Gaidi we may also see Abdi in Gaidi’s place.

South Africa’ Parreira will stick to the same starting line-up that played against Angola as he is looking for more harmony as well as high morals.

It should be a tight Tunisian win considering their superiority upfront vs vulnerability in the back as opposed to the South Africans pace all over the field and ineffectiveness upfront.

Predicted scoreline: 2-1