[ad_1]
Egypt becomes record holder, Comoros wins first entry and Tunisia achieves unique achievement
The national soccer teams of seven Arab countries reached a new record at the 2021 African Cup of Nations (AFCON), which will be hosted by Cameroon in early 2022.
Despite the championships being postponed due to the new coronavirus (COVID-19), the Arab teams have still taken the jackpot in terms of participation.
The largest version, in which several Arab teams participated, was the one organized by Egypt in 2019, in which five Arab teams qualified, namely Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Mauritania. The 2021 version is the largest yet in the presence of Arab soccer’s dominance over the African soccer scene in the current period.
Egypt’s team qualified as Group 7 leader with 12 points, joined by their closest rivals in the group, the Comoros team, which is participating in AFCON for the first time in its history.
Meanwhile, both Morocco and Mauritania qualified from Group 5, with the latter participating for the second time. The Mauritanian team raised their score to nine points to finish second, having qualified for the AFCON for the first time in 2019. In that competition, the team was led by French coach Corentin Martins, who continues with the team.
Sudan will participate in the competition after an absence of almost 10 years, having qualified second in Group 3, with 12 points, behind Ghana. And in Group 8, Algeria qualified for the main competition with 14 points, while Tunisia qualified at the top of Group 10 with 16 points.
The Sudanese team marked a new line in its history with AFCON, as it managed to snatch the qualifying card from its counterpart, South Africa, in the sixth and final round of the playoffs. They won their last game 2-0 against Bafana-Bafana, with the latter needing a draw to move up to runner-up.
Sudan’s last appearance in AFCON was in the 2012 edition, which was held in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, where it reached the quarterfinals. The team won the 1970 African Cup of Nations, while managing to win second place twice in 1959 and 1963, and third place in 1957.
Morocco qualified for the AFCON 2021 finals, ahead of the final round of Group E, after leading the group by five points, ahead of runner-up Mauritania.
The Algerian team qualified after leading Group 8 with 14 points. He had won 4 games and drawn twice.
The Tunisian team managed to write several records of their own, after their success in qualifying for the final for the fifteenth time in a row and being at the top of Group 10.
They won 16 points from six games, the largest team to win by that margin since the pool system was adopted in the 1992 AFCON playoffs.
This is the fourth consecutive classification for the Tunisian national team, which have also recently qualified for the 2015, 2017 and 2019 editions.
[ad_2]
