Ivory Coast and Egypt will contest arguably the tie of the round on Wednesday as the 2 giants desire to ebook their passage to the zone-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations.
Carlos Queiroz's Pharaohs failed to affect in the course of the institution stage, in the long run achieving the knockouts way to 1-0 wins over Guinea-Bissau and Sudan, groups many could assume them to beat effortlessly.
They got the process completed however now come up against one of the extra eye-catching teams from the primary round in Ivory Coast, who rounded off the organization level with a three-1 win over protecting champions Algeria.
In Wednesday's other last-sixteen contest, and the very last sport of the spherical, wonder package Equatorial Guinea will hope to keep their promising marketing campaign against Mali, who might be firm favourites.
Mohamed Salah and Egypt have struggled to rise to the occasion to this point in Cameroon – if they cannot get themselves up for this, they may really be heading home.
This can be the 11th AFCON meeting among those two facets, making it the opposition's maximum-performed fixture, and Egypt boast a great file against the Elephants in knockout games.
Ivory Coast have no longer been a success in any of the preceding four elimination clashes – the 2 most recent had been inside the 2006 final while Egypt gained on consequences, and the semi-final years later as they ran out 4-1 winners.
As such, Ivory Coast will surely sense they have got a score to settle, and Egypt's document of losing every in their beyond AFCON knockout suits need to provide them a few optimism.
He can be struggling to get a glance-in at membership level with Arsenal, but Pepe is certainly key for the Elephants. Only Algeria's Youcef Belaili (24) changed into immediately concerned in extra pictures than him inside the group level (19 – 12 photographs, seven probabilities created), while the former Lille winger has been immediately worried in greater goals than every other Ivory Coast participant in the event up to now (3 – desires, one assist).
