Get Ready for Africa Cup of Nations Semifinals

In my humble opinion, semifinals are always the best bit of any tournament. You’re down to four quality teams, all of whom are in some sort of rhythm. You’re familiar with who’s in form (Didier Drogba) and who’s not (Asamoah Gyan) and there’s a place in the final at stake. Theoretically the final should be a better game, but that rarely happens. Maybe because there’s more hype, maybe because everyone involved is terrified of losing.

But there’s something magical about semifinals, maybe just because it’s a doublebill. And the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations semifinals should be no different. It all takes place tomorrow, and here’s what it looks like:

Ghana vs Cameroon, Accra, 1700 GMT (1200 EST)

Cote d’Ivoire vs Egypt, Kumasi, 2030 GMT (1530 EST)

For the record that’s the hosts versus the all-time Africa Cup of Nations top scorer, and the current Africa Cup of Nations champions versus the team they beat on penalties in the 2006 final.

Ghana have hit form at the right time and will have plenty of vocal support tomorrow. They won’t have captain John Mensah though, so Claude Le Roy will have to decide whether to ask Michael Essien to cover in central defence or whether he’s needed more in midfield (I say midfield.) Cameroon may have Samuel Eto’o but they haven’t looked quite as impressive and were somewhat fortunate to wriggle past Tunisia in the quarterfinals. But they certainly have a determined manager. Otto Pfister was for some reason locked out of the Ohene Djan stadium before his team’s training session yesterday, so the 70-year-old had a good swear at police until the gates were unlocked. You tell ‘em Otto.

Didier Drogba and friends are scoring goals like there’s no tomorrow and Ivory Coast look to have arguably the most attacking options of any team at the tournament, but they’re still waiting to see whether defensive colossus Kolo Toure is fit enough to play. Egypt were slick against Angola, but have had a run of relatively easy games since beating Cameroon 4-2 in the opener. The team has no obvious weaknesses, and has all kinds of creative talent (Hassan, Aboutreika etc) so tomorrow we’ll find out if Hassan Shehata (the last African coach standing) and his men have what it takes to go all the way.

LiveBlogs of both games:

Ghana vs Cameroon LiveBlog

Cote d’Ivoire vs Egypt LiveBlog