Will anyone be watching ? Can't see any interest from either terrestrial , Sky , TNT , Viaplay or Eurosport for the Asian Cup which started today & saw Qatar 3 v 0 Lebanon & unfortunately Sky will be showing all of the AFCON games live starting Saturday 13th when Ivory Coast v Guinea-Bissau is the opening match also 1 of 10 live game across the BBC live at 8 o'clock tomorrow .
I thought Ivory Coast 2 v 0 Guinea Bissau was an ok watch for opening tournament game but with 16 of the 32 making it through to the next stage a loss in 1st match isn't the be all & end all . Great to hear ex Spalding United FC manager & former Posh ' Legend ' Gaby Zakuani on commentary duty , he represented DC Congo in 3 AFCON's so should know the score . Cracking 2nd goal for I.Coast , quite a few familiar faces on view yet strangely enough Saudi Pro League , then French & thirdly Premier League make up most of the participants . Nigeria v Equatorial Guinea ' Live on Sky Sports Mix ' on Sky's basic package tomorrow at 2pm & BBC3 are showing Egypt v Ghana live on Thursday at 8pm .
Caught the end of the Ivory Coast game. Will try to tune in when games are on. Hoping to catch some of the Asian Cup games as we have a couple of players out there, albeit centre halves so not the most exciting position and one of those is playing for Indonesia so not sure if there games will be broadcast. Something nuts always seems to happen in the AFCON
Bit of a shock with Nigeria & a 230 million population & players plying their trade in top flight leagues only managing a 1-1 draw v Equatorial Guinea population of 1.6 million who's players hail mostly from Spanish 2nd & 3rd divisions albeit there 22 year old GK man of match . Shame how empty the stadium was .
Not sure it was. I saw a twitter post (may have been on here) with their forward options on there and the comments from the Nigerian support were largely negative and saying that they'd likely be rolled by minnows because their defence and specifically their keeper are crap.
Maybe not but size of country & resources plus they battered E.G . most of 2nd half , squandered loads of chances & E.G's GK had a blinder . Egypt drawing & Ghana losing means all 3 fancied teams have dropped points .
Not sure where they stand in current World rankings but I'd expect Namibia beating Tunisia earlier a bit of a shock .
There will be some non-league interest in Tanzania's opening match this afternoon vs. Morocco. I hope Tarryn Allarakhia does start and they put him on the left wing like he plays at club football - would be rather amusing to see a Wealdstone player go 1 on 1 vs. Achraf Hakimi in a major international tournament. Haji Mnoga (Aldershot Town), Mo Sagaf (Boreham Wood) and Ben Starkie (Ilkeston Town) are also in the Tanzania squad.
Egypt v Ghana Live on BBC3 tonight at 7.50 . Both teams dropped points in opening matches so could be an end to end banger
Just about to post that Egypt v Ghana is/was one of the worst first halves of football I think I've ever watched & then Salah goes off on 44 mins with possibly a hamstring & then West Ham's Kudus scores a banger on 47 mins , here's hoping second half will improve , ref is absolute gash .
Could end up with Egypt dropping out at the group stage. Though Salah picking up a knock is a concern.
They'll go through & wouldn't surprise me to see Salah back in Last 16 match , if his injury was that bad he'd have headed for the treatment room rather than sit on the bench without any ice/strapping etc...
