Not sure if anybody follows African futbol here? Well, quick update at a glance, the Africa Cup of Nations 2012 kicked-off on 21 Jan 2012 at (co-hosted by) Gabon and Equatorial Guinea! Seven-time and defending champion, Egypt, failed to qualify for this tournament, together with Nigeria and Cameroon, surprising failed to qualify as well, Ivory Coast and Ghana are the favorites to lift the Cup this year!
Personally, I do not follow much African futbol, not until the fantastic marketing work of Puma, which literally pulled me into the colorful continent’s most anticipated futbol tournament! 9 teams out of the 16 teams competing in this tournament are sponsored by Puma! The striking colors are obviously the color of the African as their futbol are equally colorful – the aggression with spark of fire at foot and the lighting fast pace of game on the pitch! Few familiar names in this tournament which probably might attract a couple minutes of your time to watch the games are Ivory Coast and Chelsea’s hitman, Didier Drogba, together with team mate, Salamon Kalou, and Morocco and Arsenal’s Marouane Chamakh!
Both the hosts, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea kicked-off their campaign with a 2-0 and 1-0 win over Niger and Libya respectively. Ivory Coast registered a 1-0 victory over Sudan with a fine-strike from Drogba, and Lyon’s Mensah scored to give Ghana a well-deserved 1-0 victory over Botswana. Games will continue today. Quarter-final commences on 4 Feb 2012, Semi-final on the 8th, third-place play-off on the 11th and finally the Final on the 12th at Stade d’Angondjé, Gabon.
To know more about Africa Cup of Nations 2012, check out the full schedule below. So who do you think the champion will be? My guess…. Ivory Coast! Let’s see 🙂
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