When the draws of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations were made, many including Box 18 were quick to pick the traditional teams as possible group qualifiers

In Group A we were fast to pick Ivory Coast and Nigeria as automatic qualifiers, while nobody gave Equatorial Guinea; and  Guinea-Bissau any chance. Alas!, at the end of the group matches, Equatorial Guinea became the group winners,with Nigeria coming out as second, while Cote d ivore had to depend on mother luck to enter the second round. 

In Group B, we picked Egypt and Ghana as automatic qualifiers, but what did we see, Cape Varde came out tops followed by Egypt, and Mozambique, Ghana were shown the way home.

Group C had  Senegal,  Cameroon as earlier the favorites , which turned to be so, but Cameroon struggled to get in at last.

Group D had the likes of Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, we the book makers were quick to pick Algeria and Burkina Faso, but at the end, Algeria couldn't make it out of the group.

In Group E, Tunisia ,Namibia ,Mali and South Africa were grouped together. Tunisia and Mali were expected to emerged from there, but it turned out to be a nightmare for Tunisia as South Africa emerged along Mali.

For Group F, Morocco, DR Congo emerged as expected. But Tanzania and Zambia gave others a run for their money.

Eighty-nine goals were scored in total matches of  36 group games. Despite only eight teams got  eliminated from the initial pool of 24, some major nations failed to make it through to the round of 16 - including Ghana, Algeria and Tunisia.

At  the group of 16 matches, host Ivory Coast eliminated the title holders Senegal,  while Nigeria knocked out Cameroon in what many tagged as the  clash of the titans.

Ivory Coast qualified for the round of 16 despite losing two of their three group matches, defeated the defending Champions, Senegal.

Angola eliminated Namibia, while Equatorial Guinea who were tagged the giant killers were bundled out by  Guinea, record holders Egypt were eliminated by DR Congo, with Cape Verde outscoring  Mauritania.
Mali vs Burkina Faso
Morocco vs South Africa

At the Quarter-Finals stage, It will be Nigeria vs Angola, DR Congo vs  Guinea, Cape Verde  vs Morocco or South Africa, Mali or Burkina Faso vs vory Coast.

In summation, one thing that remains clear is that football development in Africa is becoming faster, and the assumed minnow football playing nations are fastly caughting up with the so called ' super powers' in continent. This is no longer a time where  analysts can predict the outcome of any match, except it is played.

Kudos to CAF/FIFA for ensuring that programmes are provided to support these countries to grow and grow faster.