North African giants Algeria and Tunisia go head-to-head in a fascinating north African battle in Group D at Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg on Tuesday evening.
The match is expected to be one of the clashes of the opening round of competition and also could have a major say in who qualifies from what is seen as the group of death that also has favourites Cote d’Ivoire and Emmanuel Adebayor led Togo.
“The match against Tunisia will determine our future in this competition,” says Desert Warriors Coach Vahid Halilhodzic, who ironically was in charge of group mate Cote d’Ivoire when they were ousted by Algeria in the quarterfinals in 2010.
“Anything is possible at the Cup of Nations. Honestly, who bet even one dime that Zambia would win the last competition [in 2012]? I can assure Algerians that we will not be in South Africa as tourists.
The Fennec Foxes have had a decent build-up top the tournament, though they did look below par in their warm-up match with South Africa that finished 0-0. They faded badly in the game and could well be affected by the altitude here again.
Tunisia’s Carthage Eagles didn’t have the best of pre-tournament warms, having been thumped 4-2 by Ghana, and also held by Ethiopia and Gabon.
All of those occurred at the teams camp in UAE and they were one of the last teams to arrive in South Africa for the tournament.
The Tunisians can count on recent experience for some hope though, they were not expected to feature prominently at the 2012 finals in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, but reached the quarterfinals before losing narrowly to Ghana in extra-time.
Algeria edge the head-to-head between these two sides slightly with 15 wins to 11. The two sides will however be meeting for the first time in the Africa Cup of Nations final tournament.
