Analysis: Tanzania carry unwanted AFCON record to knockout stage

Ahead of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals in Morocco, there were four national teams with an unwanted record. Now, with the group-stage battles done and dusted, there are two sides that still carry that embarrassing record at the tournament.

Going into the competition, Mozambique, Botswana, Benin and Tanzania had never tasted maximum points at the AFCON finals.

Tanzania

Despite qualifying to the round-of-16 stage of AFCON for the first time in their history, Tanzania remain without a win at the competition.

Miguel Gamondi’s charges progressed to the knockout phase after collecting two points from 1-1 draws with Tunisia and Uganda to make up for a 2-1 loss to Nigeria.

Gamondi’s charges, who will co-host the 2027 AFCON finals with Kenya and ‍Uganda, have five draws and seven ⁠defeats in 12 games at the continental finals.

Botswana

Benin beat Botswana 1-0 for the West Africans to register their first three points at the tournament. This left the Southern African opponents still winless in six games spread over two AFCON editions.

Despite the setback, Botswana midfielder Gape Mohutsiwa painted a picture of his team’s progress at the AFCON finals despite obvious struggles.

“The level is very high, and anybody is expected to be very high. When we qualified, we knew what we were putting ourselves into,” he said.

On the other hand, Mozambique also ended their poor AFCON run when they stunned Gabon 3-2. It was Mozambique’s first win in 17 matches in six appearances at AFCON.

Defeats at the hands of Cameroon and Ivory Coast did little to dampen the mood among Chiquinho Conde’s boys who have also made it into the round-of-16 for the first time in the country’s football history.

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