Mauritania vs Angola prediction: AFRICA: Africa Cup of Nations betting tips on match 2024-01-19 17:00.
Two nations ranked outside of FIFA’s top-100 will square off in a pivotal Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) Group D encounter, as 105th ranked Mauritania tackle 117th ranked Angola in a potential do-or-die match for the pair. That’s because both teams failed to get their campaigns off to winning starts, with Mauritania conceding a heartbreaking 96th minute dagger to lose 1-0 to Burkina Faso, while Angola fared slightly better with a 1-1 draw against the group’s top-ranked team Algeria.
Despite their superior ranking, Amir Abdou’s Mauritania side head into this fixture as underdogs, perhaps due to their winless record in the AFCON group stages now standing at seven matches (D2, L5). The Lions of Chinguetti will be hoping to leverage the experience of this being their third successive finals appearance at least, as another winless outing will severely jeopardise their hopes of a first-ever knockout round qualification.
Mauritania’s Achilles heel is very apparent as they’ve failed to score in each of their last four outings (D2, L2), while opponents Angola have managed to find the net in their last two matches (W1, D1) after five of their previous seven games ended 0-0. The last two encounters between the two sides followed suit in that regard, with two goalless stalemates, but that’s a result that will help neither side here in their hunt to advance beyond the group stage.
Like their opponents, victory has been absent from Angola’s vocabulary when it comes to recent AFCONs, with their winless streak in the group stages now peaking at nine (D5, L4). Another fruitless endeavour here will just punctuate how out-of-sorts the Black Antelopes’ have been recently, as they’ll be staring down the barrel of a fourth consecutive AFCON group stage exit.
Players to watch: Mauritania’s hopes may lie in the hands of Hemeya Tanji as he’s scored in each of their last three wins. Hoping to outgun him will be Angola’s first round saviour Mabululu, whose penalty against Algeria was his 17th team opening goal from his last 19 goalscoring appearances for club and country.
Hot stat: The same half-time result has been replicated at full-time in six of Mauritania’s seven AFCON group games.