The defending champions opened their 2024 AFCON campaign with a cruising 3-0 victory against Gambia, thus cementing that they won’t be easily dethroned.
Despite boasting the experience and talents of the members of the 2021 AFCON winning squad, this is a Senegal team with an undeniable freshness. Young players like Pape Gueye, Pape Sarr, Nicolas Jackson, and co will look to play a more vital role and mark this as their tournament. In fact, that is the major requisite for the Teranga Lions to reclaim glory.
The members of the old guard, such as Idrissa Gana Gueye and Cheikhou Kouyaté will undoubtedly be content with a place on the bench and playing more of mentoring role to their teammates. On the other hand, the starting core of Sadio Mane, Edouard Mendy, and Kalidou Koulibaly have all grown older and moved to a less competitive league. This is a massive opportunity for the young core and it seems like they are going to seize it.
Senegal has been the most impressive team in a tournament characterized by major upsets so far. Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Egypt, and Algeria have all failed to win their opening matches. It’s too early to count everyone else out, but Senegal is definitely justifying its label of defending champions and one of the tournament favorites.
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