The Africa Cup of Nations Situation – Group A

It’s crunch time at the Africa Cup of Nations, with just one round of group games to go. Each day a group will be decided, with the top two going through to the quarterfinals and the bottom two checking out of their expensive hotels and heading home. Today it’s Group A that gets decided, and right now Group A looks like this:

If teams are tied on points then the tie-breakers go: head to head results, goal difference, goals scored. If more than one team is tied then it goes: point scored in games between those teams, number of goals scored in games between those teams. Got it? Me neither. But wait, it gets worse.

If the teams still can’t be separated then it comes down to who has the best Fair Play record (least yellow and red cards goes through) and then finally – if all else fails – they draw straws (that’s not a joke, they really do.) Today’s deciding games, with links to the coverage on World Cup Blog:

Here’s who needs what in order to qualify:

Ghana are almost there. The only way Ghana doesn’t make it is if they lose to Morocco by more than one goal and fail to score twice. Even if that happens they’re still safe if Guinea fail to beat Namibia.

Guinea just need to beat Namibia to qualify. Unless Morocco beat Ghana, which would create a three way six-point tie at the top. In that case Guinea need Ghana to lose by more than one goal and score less than two. If Ghana beat Morocco then a draw is good enough for Namibia.

Morocco really need to beat Ghana to qualify, as this would put them level with the host on six points, but give them a superior head to head record. A draw is enough if Guinea lose to Namibia. But if Guinea draw against Namibia, they’ll top Morocco due to the better head to head.

Namibia are still alive mathematically. But only mathematically. They need to beat Guinea and hope Ghana beats Morocco. If this happens then Namibia will qualify if they have a better goal difference than Morocco, which is unlikely given they lost 5-1 to the the Atlas Lions. So Namibia need to spank Guinea and hope Ghana put a ton past Morocco.

You can follow all this slightly complicated simultaneous Group A action over on World Cup Blog:

Ghana vs Morocco, Accra, 17:00 – LiveBlog 1700 GMT

Guinea vs Namibia, Sekondi, 17:00 – OpenThread 1700 GMT

	Soccer Forums	Team/International Results

Category: African Cup of Nations, World Football

Tags: African Cup of Nations, Ghana, Guinea, Morocco, Namibia, World Football

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