Ten Interesting Facts About AFCON So Far 

WITH the completion of the group stage and round of 16 matches on Tuesday, some facts regarding the staging of the continental fiesta in the West African country of Cote d’Ivoire are simply obvious.

Here are some of them.  

1. Morocco, Egypt, Ghana and Algeria were eliminated by underdogs.
2. DR Congo qualified for the quarter-finals without winning a game in regular time. They have four draws.
3. A club’s defender, Emilio Nsue of Equatorial Guinea is the current top scorer with 5 goals in 4 games. He plays as a right-back in the Spanish third tier and as a Winger for Equatorial Guinea.
4. Namibia and Mauritania qualified for their first-ever Round of 16. Mauritania beat Algeria 1-0, while Namibia beat Tunisia 1-0.
5. Egypt qualified for the Round of 16 without winning a single game. They drew thrice in the group stage.
6. A Mauritanian player is called AK-47. His name is Aboubakar Kamara and he wore jersey no. 47 at Fulham.
7. Cote d’Ivoire narrowly qualified with 3 points as number 4 in the Third Best Place rankings in the group stage. They went on to eliminate defending champions, Senegal by beating them 1-1 (5-4 on penalties) in the AFCON Round of 16.
8. FIFA’s five highest-ranked countries at AFCON; Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt are all out of the tournament. Only the sixth-ranked nation,  Nigeria remains in the tournament.  
9. None of the quarter-finalists from the AFCON 2021 will feature in the last eight at the AFCON 2023.
10. Five West African countries, Two Southern African countries and One Central African country have qualified for the AFCON 2023 quarter-final.

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