Senegal vs. Equatorial Guinea Prediction: Senegal to continue to the semi-finals

The final Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final comes to us from The Japoma Stadium in Douala on Sunday night. The game will be shown on BBC Two, Sky Sports Football and Sky Sports Premier League.

Pre-tournament favourites Senegal have far from set the world alight in their first four AFCON games, but the only important thing for them is that they’re currently at this stage. They picked up five points in the group, scoring just once, and overcame Cape Verde with a 2-0 win in the last round. Three goals in the whole tournament isn’t anything to shout about, but the fact that they have conceded none is more than impressive.

Equatorial Guinea are continuing their fairytale tournament, featuring at AFCON for just the third time in their history, they’ve reached the quarters for the first time ever. Nzalang Nacional beat AFCON holders Algeria in the group stages to qualify for the knockout rounds, and they’ll be looking to pull off another shock against Sadio Mane’s side. As ever, we’ll have two tips for the game.

This seems to be the only sensible bet most people follow when Senegal are playing recently. This bet was due to land in their last game, before a 92nd minute goal from Bamba Dieng made it 2-0. This bet landed in their opening game victory against Zimbabwe, and they also kept a clean sheet in their next two group games. Senegal are only averaging three shots on target per game at the tournament, whilst Equatorial Guinea’s previous game against Mali saw the lowest number of shots on target recorded at this year’s AFCON, with just two. Senegal have shown they don’t need to be expansive to go far in the competition, and I expect a close encounter here.

As I think it’ll be a low scoring game, it made sense to continue that theme and add under 3 combined goals to this bet builder. Sadio Mane is Senegal’s star man of of course and he’s scored in both of his side’s wins at the tournament so far. He’s just over evens to score here, but adding him into the bet builder made sense. A reminder to check team news before kick-off, as he’s expected to play in this game, but was taken off in the last fixture after a sickening clash of heads. Carlos Akapo is the man who’s job it’ll be to stop Mane for Equatorial Guinea, and Mane’s pace and ability to change direction almost instantly will leave him with a tough task ahead. He was booked in his side’s win over Sierra Leone, and I expect him to pick up a booking, taking this to a 14/1 shot.