Note: While this edition of the Africa Cup of Nations is officially referred as Afcon 2021 due to the tournament’s postponement, for continuity, we might sometimes refer to it as Afcon 2022.
The delayed 2021 Africa Cup of Nations reaches the quarter-final stage on Saturday, with the first pair of places in the last four up for grabs.
Host nation Cameroon have sailed safely through their home event so far, with The Gambia their next opponents in Douala.
Attention then turns to Garoua when Burkina Faso meet Tunisia in the late kick off.
*All kick off times are in Central Africa Time.
Quarter-Final: Gambia vs Cameroon
Cameroon remain on track to win their home Africa Cup of Nations as they go up against The Gambia in the first quarter-final in Douala on Saturday.
The Indomitable Lions came through a bizarre Round of 16 clash with the Comoros Islands, in which the minnows were left without any recognised goalkeepers, several other squad members and even their coach, thanks to a combination of Covid-19 and injury.
That they had a man sent off inside seven minutes made it even more striking that the hosts could only scrape through 2-1 on Monday night, thanks to goals from Karl Toko Ekambi and Vincent Aboubakar.
The on-field drama paled into insignificance, however, with the news that eight people had died and many more were injured in a crush outside the Paul Biya Stadium.
Musa Barrow was the hero as Gambia clung on to stun Guinea in their last 16 clash.
The striker netted 20 minutes from the full time whistle to secure a quarter-final berth for the nation ranked 150th in the Fifa world standings coming into the Afcon tournament.
It was another famous night for the Scorpions, who had already picked off heavyweights Tunisia on their way to a second-placed finish in Group F.
They couldn’t make it a hat-trick of upsets against the host nation, could they?
Kick off at 18:00.
Quarter-Final: Burkina Faso vs Tunisia
A quarter-final fixture between Burkina Faso and Tunisia pits together two nations who scraped into the last eight of the Africa Cup of Nations by the skin of their teeth.
The Carthage Eagles’ dream of securing a first Afcon title since 2004 is still alive thanks to their hard graft to see off in-form Nigeria in the Round of 16.
Youssef Msakni scored the only goal as the three-time champions edged out the Super Eagles, who also had Alex Iwobi sent off following yet more VAR meddling at the tournament.
It’s quite the turnaround for the North Africans, who conspired to lose two of their three group matches in Cameroon.
Their opponents came through their last 16 tie with Gabon in hair-raising fashion in Limbe, winning a penalty shootout 7-6.
Adama Guira’s own goal in injury time paved the way after captain Bertrand Traore opened the scoring for the Stallions.
Kick off at 21:00.
Africa Cup of Nations predictions for 26 January
Find all the fixtures and results for the 2022 Africa Cup of Nations here.
Prediction methodology explained: The expected win percentage is based off publicly available odds. For example, if a team’s odds are 2.30, the expected chance of winning is 43%. If the odds are 1.62 the expected chance of winning is 62% and so on. These are accurate at the time of writing but are subject to change. Where there is no value listed, the odds were not available at the time of writing. Other odds added here are taken from soccerstats247’s algorithm.