Guinea and Madagascar clash on Saturday in Alexandria as they kick off their Africa Cup of Nations 2019 campaigns.
Leading sportsbooks have Guinea listed as 35/1 to win this year’s Africa Cup of Nations tournament while Madagascar’s odds are much longer. The island nation is 250/1 to win the competition
Neither Guinea nor Madagascar have ever won the Africa Cup of Nations tournament. Madagascar are playing in their first ever Africa Cup of Nations finals.
Group B should be dominated by Nigeria and the likes of Guinea, Madagascar, and Burundi will be fighting for second place.
The two African nation have played twice previously with the matches ending with both teams scoring. Guinea are undefeated against Madagascar posting one win and one draw.
Guinea’s last appearance in the competition came in 2015 and saw the African nation reach the quarterfinals. Guinea made the final eight without winning a single match as they posted three group draws to progress.
Manager Paul Put has a squad made up of players who predominately play their club football in Europe. Guinea’s highest profile player is Liverpool’s Naby Keita, who will captain the side at the tournament.
Auxerre striker Mohamed Yattara leads Guinea’s squad with 10 international goals in 32 games.
A majority of Madagascar’s squad ply their trade in France. Clermont Foot striker Andriatsima is the national team’s most experienced international player with 31 caps. He has tallied 12 goals on the international level to lead the national team.
Hard work is underway for Madagascar prior to #TotalAFCON2019 👊 pic.twitter.com/8YEWOTSEuy— CAF (@CAF_Online) June 19, 2019
Hard work is underway for Madagascar prior to #TotalAFCON2019 👊 pic.twitter.com/8YEWOTSEuy
Madagascar has not had a great 2019. Manager Nicolas Dupuis has seen his side go winless in four international matches this year.
Three of those matches ended in losses. Two of the four fixtures ended in clean sheet defeats for Madagascar. Meanwhile, two of their four matches saw both teams score.
Guinea have had a similarly poor year on the international front. They have lost three of four matches and their only positive result was a nil-nil draw against Central African Republic.
In three of their four matches in 2019, Guinea were held to clean sheets. Just one time did a Guinea match this year finish with both teams scoring.
Guinea’s final warm-up for the Africa Cup of Nations saw them lose 3-1 to host Egypt. Meanwhile, Madagascar lost to fellow tournament hopeful Mauritania 3-1 in their final build-up fixture.
Saturday night’s fixture between Guinea and Madagascar will be a close affair with just a goal separating them. Guinea does have better quality in their team but neither nation has had a great year to this point.
Guinea will get off on the right foot with a victory as both sides score and over 2.5 goals find the back of the net.