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.
Semi-Final: Cameroon vs Egypt
The eyes of the football world are drawn to Yaounde on Thursday for the second Africa Cup of Nations semi-final between Cameroon and Egypt.
It’s a suitably massive clash between the host nation and the seven-time Afcon champions at the Olembe Stadium.
Mohamed Salah was the hero for the Pharaohs as they squeezed past North African rivals Morocco in their quarter-final.
The Liverpool forward scored from close range to level the scores after Sofiane Boufal had put the Atlas Lions ahead, before pulling back in extra-time for fellow English Premier League star Trezeguet to knock in the winner.
It was even tighter in the Round of 16 for Carlos Queiroz’s side, who were taken all the way to a penalty shootout by Ivory Coast before that man Salah scored the decisive spot kick.
They had earlier come through Group D as runner-up to seal their tricky path through the knockouts.
An opening match defeat to Nigeria’s Super Eagles left them with work to do, but wins over Guinea-Bissau and Sudan did the trick to put them in the frame for an eighth Afcon title.
The hosts cruised into the semis without alarm on Saturday thanks to a 2-0 win over the Gambia.
Toko Ekambi provided both goals as a fox in the box, heading home in the 50th minutes before a tap in seven minutes later sealed their spot in the last four.
There has been a sense of the stars aligning for the Indomitable Lions on home turf, who came through 2-1 in the Round of 16 after a favourable draw in the shape of the Comoros Islands.
It started smoothly in the Group A curtain-raiser, too, with victory in the capital city over fellow semi-finalists Burkina Faso.
Success against Ethiopia sealed progression to the knockouts at the earliest possible opportunity, before a draw with Cape Verde proved enough to ensure top spot.
Kick off at 21:00 (Central African Time).
Africa Cup of Nations predictions for 3 February
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.
| RESULT PREDICTION | Cameroon to win |
| OVER/UNDER PREDICTION | over 2.5 goals |
| HT / FT PREDICTION | Cameroon / Cameroon to win |
| TEAM TO SCORE PREDICTION | both teams |
| ANYTIME GOALSCORER PREDICTION | Vincent Pat? Aboubakar(Cameroon) K. Toko Ekambi(Cameroon) |