SENEGAL 2015: ONE DOWN, YET ANOTHER AS RIO TICKET HOTS UP

Habeeb Akinfegbe

2011 champions, Gabon lifting the trophy in Morocco

Curtain falls on the 2nd CAF U-23 championship as Nigeria and Algeria face off in the final match of the tournament. both sides have met twice in the history of the competition with the Nigerians on the upper hand after defeating the fennecs 4-1 in the last group match of the inaugural edition held in Morocco: it finished 4-1. the second time they met was again also in the last group match of this edition and it ended 0-0.

By virtue of their semi final victories over Senegal and South Africa, both sides have made it to the draw of the 2016 Olympic games in Rio. Hence his contest is just to decide the champion of the competition.

On the other hand, the real contest left in this tournament is the third place play off, reason is that the winner of the match grabs the third and final automatic slot allocated to Africa. This time the play-off to decide the last place in the football event will be between Colombia and USA sometime in March, 2016. Hence there is no room for anybody that finishes fourth.

So far, Brazil, Algeria, Nigeria, Honduras, Mexico, Argentina Fiji, Denmark, Germany, Portugal and Sweden have confirmed their places in the Olympics, one more place will be confirmed after Senegal face South Africa three more places will be confirmed after the 2016 AFC U-23 championship in Qatar in January.