Stats Favor Nigeria Prior To AFCON Final

AFCON 2013 Final: Burkina Faso’s Paul Kéba Koulibaly (left) or Nigeria’s Emmanuel Emenike (right) will celebrate at the expense of the other on Sunday

While skipping through the channels on Wednesday to find one of the highly anticipated friendlies England-Brazil, Netherlands-Italy, or France-Germany, I came across another international game which had me hooked immediately. It was Burkina Faso-Ghana, the second semifinal of the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa. Luckily for me, the score was still tied at 1 each after extra time and I was just on time for a neutral fan’s favorite part of a soccer game – the penalty shootout. The Stallions from Burkina Faso demonstrated stronger nerves from the spot and outscored Ghana 3-2. This way they guaranteed their place in Sunday’s final against Nigeria, which thrashed Mali 4-1 earlier on Wednesday.

As much of a soccer fanatic that I am, my knowledge about African football, in general, is limited mainly to performances of African nations in World Cup competitions as well as the individual performances of African soccer players in the “big” European leagues. Therefore, it would be foolish of me to try to make an analytical prediction of which team will walk off the pitch as the African champion on Sunday. As I watched the Burkina Faso’s players’ tears of joy and prayers, however, I gave in to the “underdog effect” and asked myself if it is at all possible that they take their dream all the way and beat Nigeria on Sunday.

Even though the two teams met in the group stage of the competition, the highlights of the 1-1 draw didn’t give me enough from which to draw conclusion on who is a favorite ahead of the final. So I decided to make a little research and compare the teams in several criteria that I thought illustrate the class of each squad and thus to get an idea of the Stallions’ chance to defeat Nigeria’s Super Eagles. For each criteria, I also compared Nigeria and Ghana, with the purpose of comparing the class of Burkina Faso’s last two obstacles on the way to making history.

The first criteria is the two (three, including Ghana) teams’ performance in the past 2 editions of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) (2010 and 2012) because in my opinion experience and tradition in the tournament will definitely play their part in the final. In 2010, Burkina Faso were eliminated in the group stage because they lost their last game to…Ghana (see the irony there?). Nigeria, on the other hand, advanced comfortably and reached the semi-finals, where they, too, lost to Ghana. Eventually, Nigeria won the bronze medals while Ghana lost the final to Egypt. In 2012, Burkina Faso left the tournament with 3 defeats to its records while the Super Eagles did not even qualify. In comparison to both teams, Ghana worked itself up to the third place of the competition. Overall, Nigeria has 2 titles and 4 third-place finishes in its AFCON history, while Burkina Faso’s best result is fourth place in 1978.

The second criteria that I thought is key to the outcome of Sunday’s final is the performance of the two teams’ star players. For this reason, I looked up the rosters of the two teams to see how many players of each squad play in the “big” European leagues. Namely, the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, French Ligue 1 and German Bundesliga. Of the Burkinabe players who have played regularly so far in the tournament, 6 play in “big” leagues – 5 in Ligue 1 and 1 in the Bundesliga. Nigeria has only 5 “star” players – 2 from La Liga, 2 from the Premier League and 1 from Serie A – but the two who play in England are John Obi Mikel and Victor Moses, players of European champion Chelsea. Ghana had 7 “big”-league players on their squad.

As a last source of comparison I used the website www.transfermarkt.com, which calculates the market value of a certain players based on his performance for his team and various other factors. According to www.transfermarkt.com, Nigeria’s AFCON squad‘s total value is 86.5 million euros (~115.5 million dollars) while Burkina Faso’s AFCON squad is worth only 29.95 million euros (~40 million dollars). The estimated value of the Ghanaian squad is 77.3 million dollars. The Nigerian squad’s average age is 24.3 years; their opponent’s is 26.4 years.

In other words, on Sunday we have a younger, star-spangled Nigeria, with tradition on its side, facing a more mature Burkinabe squad. Nothing else seems to be in the Stallions’ favor, but I am sure things seemed quite similar prior to their game against Ghana.

Do you believe the numbers? Can Burkina Faso pull one more trick out of the hat? Who will be the difference-maker in the final? What do you think will be the final score?

Comments are welcome.