Kick Off: 5pm (EAT)
Defending champions Senegal begin title defence on Monday when they face Gambia.
The Lions of Teranga head into the game as favourites but must be wary of the Scorpions.
The first game is important for either side given next opponents are Cameroon and Guinea – giants of the game.
Here are the selected match facts and interesting figures as collected by Cafonline.com
- This will be the first encounter between Senegal and Gambia at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations. Excluding the CAF African Nations Championship, Senegal and Gambia last faced each other in the qualifiers for the 2010 FIFA World Cup: both games ended in draws (0-0; 1-1).
- Senegal are making their 17th appearance at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations. They will be aiming to win back-to-back AFCON tournaments for the first time since Egypt’s three in a row from 2006 to 2010, although no AFCON defending champion has progressed further than the round of 16 in the last six editions of the CAF Africa Cup of Nations.
- Senegal have won their opening game in each of the last four CAF Africa Cup of Nations (v Ghana in 2015, v Tunisia in 2017, v Tanzania in 2019, v Zimbabwe in 2022).
- Since 2017, Senegal have kept more clean sheets than any other team in the Africa Cup of Nations (13 in 18 matches).
- This is Gambia’s second appearance at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations. They reached the quarter finals in their inaugural participation in the 2021 edition, eventually losing 2-0 to Cameroon.
- As per the last edition, Gambia were the only team to make it through both the preliminary round and group stage of the 2023 CAF Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, beating Chad in the preliminaries and finishing second to Mali in the group phase.
- Despite reaching the quarter finals in AFCON 2021, Gambia never scored more than one goal in their five matches (W3 D1 L1). All three of their victories were by a 1-0 scoreline.
- Sadio Mané has scored or assisted 48% of Senegal’s goals over the last three CAF Africa Cup of Nations (8 goals, 3 assists). He’s also had 97 touches in the opposition box (5.4 per game) and completed 57 dribbles (3.2 per game) since his debut in the competition in 2015, more than any other player over that period.
- This is Aliou Cissé’s fourth consecutive CAF Africa Cup of Nations as Senegal head coach – under his leadership, the Lions of Teranga have been quarter-finalists in 2017, beaten finalists in 2019 and champions in 2022. Senegal have also won more games (11) and kept more clean sheets (13) at AFCON than any other team during the same period.
- Musa Barrow was directly involved in all four of Gambia’s goals at the 2021 CAF Africa Cup of Nations, scoring twice and assisting the other two.