The Africa Cup of Nations has reached the final phase, with two teams ready to compete on Friday for the continental crown. But before Algeria and Senegal can go head to head for the title, there is the Third Place Play-Off to consider, between disappointed losing semi-finalists Nigeria and Tunisia.
These two teams have won the competition four times between them and will meet at the Al Salam Stadium in Cairo on Wednesday for the consolation prize of finishing third.
For Tunisia, this will be the fourth time in their history that they’ve competed for third, having won the 1962 Third Place Play-Off, and lost in 1978 and 2000. But three-time AFCON winners Nigeria have specialised in finishing third in this competition over the years. In fact, they’ve ended up in third place on seven occasions, and have a remarkable record of never having lost a Third Place Play-Off.
While both teams will be disappointed to have ended up in this game rather than the Final, the pressure will be on Nigeria more than their north African rivals to come away from this tournament having secured third place. Manager Gernot Rohr has successfully guided them to this competition, as well as last year’s World Cup, but he has been under increasing criticism in recent weeks over his team selection and tactics, most notably after the 2-0 defeat in the final Group game against Madagascar, which meant they finished second rather than first in Group B.
Tunisia manager Alain Giresse is not under the same sort of pressure. Having taken over as Tunisia boss at the end of 2018, he has already steered the team to their best AFCON performance since 2000, and knock-out victories over Ghana and a spirited Madagascar side, before a narrow defeat to Senegal, represents a solid performance for the Eagles of Carthage.
They won’t go into this game as favourites, however. Nigeria, who can boast a number of players who have proven themselves at the top level of domestic football, are rated as the +158 favourites by BetCris, who have Tunisia as +196 favourites and the normal time draw at +200.
As always with these games, it is likely that there will be some squad rotation and opportunities for fringe players to get a run-out so there will be an element of unpredictability going into this match. One thing that we can hope for is that the reduced pressure of this fixture might lead both teams to abandon their usual approach and opt for a more attacking style.
Nigeria have varied their strategies, but they have most often looked to hit on the counter through the pace of Ahmed Musa, while Tunisia have reached the latter stages of the tournament with four normal-time draws and one victory, conceding just three goals in six ninety-minute periods. They do have the talent to create chances, however, as they showed against Madagascar, so AFCON fans will be hoping that these two strong teams bow out of this year’s tournament in style.
