₦airaland Forum

The Group D contest will take place at the Stade de la Paix in Bouake, Ivory Coast.

The two-time winners get underway against Angola in Bouake, having eased past the likes of Burundi in warm-up friendlies led by their star players that include former Manchester City winger Riyad Mahrez and AC Milan's Ismael Bennacer, among others.

2006 World Cup qualifiers Angola are making their ninth appearance at AFCON and their first since 2019, when they were eliminated at the group stage.

They reached the quarter-finals in successive tournaments in 2008 and 2010, hosting the latter, but will likely be competing with Mauritania to avoid bottom spot this time around.

Milan midfielder Bennacer is back for Algeria in a huge boost following knee surgery that kept him out from May until December, with the likes of Mahrez, Roma's Houssem Aouar, Islam Slimani, Ramy Bensebaini, Rayan Ait-Nouri, Nabil Bentaleb and Sofiane Feghouli among the regulars in Djamel Belmadi's squad.

Union SG's Mohamed Amoura and Fares Chaibi of Eintracht Frankurt are lesser-known talents that could shine at this tournament. West Ham's Said Benrahma is among the most notable absentees, meanwhile.

Pedro Goncalves' Angola are crucially without Fiorentina forward M’bala Nzola, who has decided to snub the AFCON call-up due to family reasons having been included in the preliminary group.

saintruky:
Who go win?

Revolva:
Algeria go wipe dem

Fira09:
Algeria that couldn't win any match in the last Afcon, got 1 point from 3 matches as a defending champions.

Algeria is too over hyped, Majority of Nigerians are too ignorant if not 90%.

Fira09:
Algeria that couldn't win any match in the last Afcon, got 1 point from 3 matches as a defending champions.

Algeria is too over hyped, Majority of Nigerians are too ignorant if not 90%.

Princedapace:
I am loving this match. North Africans know how to raise game tempo
Aleria dey ball abeg