The Sunday Mail
Geremi Njitap
A memorable tournament will conclude with two of the favourites going head-to-head as well as Liverpool teammates Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane.
The Africa Cup of Nations reaches its conclusion tonight with a mouth-watering final between Senegal and Egypt.
While Senegal beat Burkina Faso 3-1 to seal their spot in the showpiece, Egypt were pushed all the way to a penalty shoot-out by host nation Cameroon before prevailing.
As a player, you will not get too many opportunities to play in these type of matches, so it will mean a lot, and they will take it so seriously.
We have two big teams with big players and, on occasions like these, it is those big players who love to make the difference and write their name in the history of their country.
At the beginning of the tournament, I spoke with some of the Senegal officials and they were saying this was their time.
They have never won the Africa Cup of Nations, so will do everything to do it this time.
They have a very strong team and some very good individuals within that.
Egypt do have the experience of winning the AFCON — seven times — and that is why they are the most successful side in Africa.
They have that experience of winning.
They are not playing all that well in attack but they know that in this kind of tournament you don’t have to score all the time.
You have to manage it match by match and I think that is what they do.
They have done this all the way through to the final, and in the final, they will try to be strong defensively and wait until the end to try and score a winner.
This is their tactic and most of the time, it works.
I think Senegal will dominate the match for sure but to dominate doesn’t mean that you will win. Look at the semi-final, Cameroon dominated all the match against Egypt but then lost on penalties.
