By Lexi Elo
As the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Nations Cup that ended in Equatorial Guinea at the weekend witnessed the emergence of Ivory Coast, after 22 years of winning their first trophy, a peep into some of the Africa Cup of Nations’ most important record and statistics leaves a lotto cheer about the competition that showcases the best of African football.
Samuel Eto’o is the all-time top goal scorers at the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), netting 18 goals from six tournaments. Of active players on the scorers’ list, Asamoah Gyan has seven, while Gervinho, Andre Ayew and Seydou Keita have six apiece.
The most goals scored at a single AFCON tournament is nine by Zaire’s Ndaye Mulamba in 1974, Mtnfootball.com revealed.[pro_ad_display_adzone id=”10″]
There have been no hat-tricks in the last four editions of the AFCON. Overall, there have been 15 in the tournament’s history, the most recent of which came from Soufiane Alloudi for Morocco in a 5-1 win over Namibia in the group stages of 2008.
Kolo Toure and Boubacar Barry each appeared in their seventh AFCON tournaments for Ivory Coast in 2015. The record is eight, held jointly by Cameroon’s Rigobert Song and Egypt’s Ahmed Hassan.
Furthermore, Egypt and Ghana have hosted the most AFCON tournaments, staging the finals four times each. Ethiopia and Tunisia have been hosts three times each.
Despite not qualifying for the 2012, 2013 or 2015 editions of the AFCON, Egypt have still made more appearances at the tournament than any other team: 22. The Pharaohs also boast the most titles (7) and is the only team to have won the trophy three successive times (2006, 2008 and 2010).
Interestingly, there were no debutant teams at the 2015 AFCON. The last debutants for the tournament were Cape Verde in 2013, while Benin, Rwanda, Zimbabwe (all 2004), Botswana, Equatorial Guinea and Niger (all 2012) are the only other debutants in the 21st century.
Herve Renard is the only coach to have won two AFCON titles with two different teams: Zambia in 2012 and Ivory Coast in 2015. Egypt’s Hassan Shehata holds the record for the most titles as coach, with a hat-trick of successes at the helm of the Pharaohs from 2006 to 2010.
However, only two men have won the AFCON as both a player and a coach: Egypt’s Mahmoud El-Gohary (1959 as a player and 1998 as a coach) and Nigeria’s Stephen Keshi (1994 as a player and 2013 as a coach).