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All to play for in final round of group matches

 

It's all to play for in the final round of matches at the group stages, so we asked Jonathan Wilson to make the picture a little more clear and provide his best  bets...

 

A lot of early draws may have made the Cup of Nations a slow burner, but what it means is that the final round of group matches are suffused with intrigue. Not a  single team is yet assured of its place in the quarter-finals and nobody has yet been eliminated.

 

In Group A, South Africa (1.03 to reach the quarter-final), having cast aside at least some of their anxieties, need just a point against Morocco - underperforming yet again - to go through, and would go through even with a defeat if Cape Verde (1.77) fail to beat Angola (4.2), who must win and hope Morocco (1.97) don't beat South Africa to progress.

 

Burkina Faso (1.3 to qualify), with their energetic style and the finishing of Alain Traore, have, slightly surprisingly, taken control of Group C, and will qualify with a draw against Zambia (1.5), who need a win to be sure but would qualify with a draw if Nigeria (1.3) play out a lower-scoring draw against Ethiopia (4.1) (if both games finish drawn with the same scoreline, it would go down to fair play, in which, after Efe Ambrose was sent off, Zambia have an advantage).

 

Ivory Coast are through, while Togo will effectively play off against Tunisia for second place in Group D.

 

Group B, meanwhile, while Ghana needing only a draw against Niger, who have won none of the five Cups of Nations finals matches in their history, it looks like a  straight shoot-out between Mali, who have won one and lost one, and DR Congo, who have drawn both their games.

 

DRC were highly impressive against Ghana, testing them early and then showing great spirit to fight back from two goals down. They benefited, it's true, from Ghana's  weirdly lackadaisical defending, Lomana Lua Lua again and again making untracked runs from deep down the left, but it was still a little baffling that they were so  toothless against Niger.

 

Tresor Mputu, the TP Mazembe forward who was once a target for Arsenal, struggled to find space and, against massed ranks of Nigeriens was far less effective than he  had been when linking counter-attacks against Ghana.

 

Given they need only a draw, there's no reason for Mali not to defend deep and in numbers against DRC. Although Seydou Keita is an inspiration going forward and Mali  have, in Bordeaux's Cheick Diabate and West Ham's Modibo Maiga, two very fine forwards, their strength over the past couple of years, as they have lifted themselves to  their best ever Fifa ranking, has been at the back.

 

They scored six and conceded five in six games in finishing third in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon last year, and have scored one and conceded one in the year's  competition.

 

There was a bizarre sense of complacency about the camp after the 1-0 win over Niger. Mali had dominated the game and should have won far more comfortably, but victory  was secured only with eight minutes remaining, yet still players were talking excitedly about potential quarter-final opponents.

 

From that point of view, the flat performance against Ghana was little surprise and the fact that the Bastia midfielder Sambou Yatabare quit the team on Thursday,  complaining about a lack of minutes on the pitch, suggests morale is not great. That said, had the Ghana goalkeeper, Fatau Dauda, been sent off in the first half as he  surely should have been, it might have been a very different game.

 

DRC haven't actually won a game since October, although their form before that, in qualifiers that mattered (for both the Cup of Nations and World Cup) was good with  nine goals scored to none against in three qualifiers).

 

With Dieudonee Mbokani in fine form, having scored five in his last five games, they certainly have the potential for goals. If anything, the chaos of their build-up,  when their coach Claude Leroy threatened to quit over a lack of support, seems to have bonded the team.

 

Recommended Bets

Lay South Africa To Qualify @ 1.03

Back Over 2.5 Goals @ 2.46 in DR Congo v Mali

 

Bet HERE

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