The champions of the Africa Cup of Nations kick off their campaign against Gambia with Senegal looking to stamp their marker down on the continent’s biggest competition with Sadio Mane set to lead the line once more.
The former Liverpool man has been in excellent form once again this season The Al-Nassr forward heads into this game with eight goals and four assists from the 18 matches he has played in the Saudi Pro League.
He will once again lead the line out for his side as he aims to close the gap on Idrissa Gueye as the all-time appearance maker for his country. He is already the all-time top scorer with 40 goals from 101 caps.
Mane will be joined by the likes of Idrissa Gueye, the nation's captain, Kalidou Koulibaly, Real Betis' Youssouf Sabaly, former Chelsea man, Edouard Mendy, Marseille's Ismaïla Sarr, and Chelsea's Nicolas Jackson.
The form of Senegal has been excellent within the past two years since winning the Africa Cup of Nations. They come into this one off the back of beating Niger 1-0 in a warm up game, as they also drew 0-0 with Togo and defeated South Sudan 4-0 in the World Cup qualifying first two games. In fact, the only loss the nation were dealt was a 1-0 loss to Algeria back in September.
Senegal have even managed to defeat Brazil 4-2 within the past year in Portugal for a friendly, while the AFCON champions have also defeated Mozambique 5-1 and 1-0 within the past year, Madagascar 1-0, Mauritania 1-0 and Ivory Coast and Congo by the same scorelines.
Senegal were excellent in their AFCON triumph two years ago and finished top of Group B with one win, two draws and no losses.
The defending champions would then go on to beat Cape Verde 2-0 before defeating Equatorial Guinea in the quarter-finals, Burkina Faso in the semi-finals and Egypt on penalties in the final.
As for Gambia, they come into this one without having played their warm up game against Morocco, as this was cancelled in the end.
This means they head into this game off the back of a winless three-game run after drawing 2-2 with Congo, a 3-2 loss to Burundi and a 2-0 defeat to Ivory Coast in the World Cup qualifiers.
Forebet predicts a win for Senegal and for the game to see under 2.5 goals