Reigning champions Senegal will get their title defense underway as they trade tackles in group C with fellow West Africans, Gambia at the Charles Konan Banny Stadium in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations, AFCON on Monday.
The Gambia have qualified for the group stage for the second time on the spin after not making an appearance in the first 32 editions of the tournament. They had a good debut campaign in the competition and made it to the quarter-finals, losing 2-0 to hosts Cameroon.
The reigning champions head into the match in good form, losing just one of their last 14 games across all competitions. They defeated Niger 1-0 in a friendly earlier this month.
The Gambia had their friendly against Morocco canceled and they were last in action in the CAF World Cup qualifiers in November, suffering back-to-back losses against Burundi and Cote d’Ivoire.
Senegal is making their fifth consecutive appearance in the continental competition and has made it to the final in the last editions. After finishing as the runners-up in 2019, they lifted their maiden AFCON title in the previous edition.
This will be the first encounter between Senegal and Gambia at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations. Excluding the CAF African Nations Championship, Senegal and Gambia last faced each other in the qualifiers for the 2010 FIFA World Cup: both games ended in draws (0-0; 1-1).
Senegal are making their 17th appearance at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations. They will be aiming to win back-to-back AFCON tournaments for the first time since Egypt’s three in a row from 2006 to 2010, although no AFCON defending champion has progressed further than the round of 16 in the last six editions of the CAF Africa Cup of Nations.
Senegal have won their opening game in each of the last four CAF Africa Cup of Nations (v Ghana in 2015, v Tunisia in 2017, v Tanzania in 2019, v Zimbabwe in 2022).
Since 2017, Senegal has kept more clean sheets than any other team in the Africa Cup of Nations (13 in 18 matches).
This is Gambia’s second appearance at the CAF Africa Cup of Nations. They reached the quarter-finals in their inaugural participation in the 2021 edition, eventually losing 2-0 to Cameroon.
As per the last edition, Gambia was the only team to make it through both the preliminary round and group stage of the 2023 CAF Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, beating Chad in the preliminaries and finishing second to Mali in the group phase.
Despite reaching the quarter-finals in AFCON 2021, Gambia never scored more than one goal in their five matches (W3 D1 L1). All three of their victories were by a 1-0 scoreline.
Sadio Mané has scored or assisted 48% of Senegal’s goals over the last three CAF Africa Cup of Nations (8 goals, 3 assists). He’s also had 97 touches in the opposition box (5.4 per game) and completed 57 dribbles (3.2 per game) since his debut in the competition in 2015, more than any other player over that period.
This is Aliou Cissé’s fourth consecutive CAF Africa Cup of Nations as Senegal’s head coach – under his leadership, the Lions of Teranga have been quarter-finalists in 2017, beaten finalists in 2019, and champions in 2022. Senegal has also won more games (11) and kept more clean sheets (13) at AFCON than any other team during the same period.
Musa Barrow was directly involved in all four of Gambia’s goals at the 2021 CAF Africa Cup of Nations, scoring twice and assisting the other two.
