{"id":5192,"date":"2024-01-04T01:40:30","date_gmt":"2024-01-04T00:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/2024\/01\/04\/read_news-phpnid49990\/"},"modified":"2024-01-04T01:40:30","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T00:40:30","slug":"read_news-phpnid49990","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/2024\/01\/04\/read_news-phpnid49990\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Everton striker Kone names seven AFCON title contenders including Super Eagles\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"newsbody\">\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.allnigeriasoccer.com\/..\/football_pics\/3605ZN2.jpg\" height=\"187\" hspace=\"8\" vspace=\"8\" alt=\"Former Everton striker Kone names seven AFCON title contenders including Super Eagles\u00a0\" align=\"left\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Former Everton striker and retired Ivory Coast international\u00a0Arouna Kon\u00e9 has named seven countries he believes can win the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Elephants of Ivory Coast are on Kone&#8217;s list, along with Senegal, Morrocco, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Kone, a veteran of three Africa Cup of Nations, has insisted that Ivory Coast are the team to beat at the tournament starting on January 13.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He was in the Elephants team that narrowly beat the Super Eagles 1-0 at the 2006 AFCON\u00a0and was a non-playing substitute in games against Nigeria in the 2008 and 2013 editions of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Super Eagles have not brought back the AFCON trophy to Abuja since the legendary Stephen Keshi led them to win the title in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite failing to win the tournament since their triumph in South Africa ten years ago, few would write off the Super Eagles squad, given the attacking players in their ranks including Victor Osimhen, Victor Boniface. Kelechi Iheanacho and Ademola Lookman.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On his favorites to win the 2023 AFCON, Kone told <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sport-ivoire.ci\/football-can\/2023-arouna-kon%C3%A9-%C2%AB%C2%A0ne-minimisons-aucune-%C3%A9quipe%C2%A0%C2%BB\" rel=\"noopener\">Sport Ivoire<\/a>: &#8220;I would say at first glance Ivory Coast. I&#8217;m not saying it because I&#8217;m Ivorian. But I say it because we have quality in our team.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Next to Ivory Coast, there are the Lions of T\u00e9ranga, reigning champions and the Atlas Lions of Morocco who had an exceptional performance during the World Cup in Qatar.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;After those, there are the natural favorites who will have their say. I want to talk about Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana without forgetting Egypt with 7 continental coronations.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ivory Coast also holds a special place in this contingent of natural favorites. There are big favorites and natural favorites. And I know that it will be between these two categories.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria have embarked on a one-week training camp in the United Arab Emirates and will play two friendlies before flying to Ivory Coast for the Africa Cup of Nations.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ifeanyi Emmanuel\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Copyright ANS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#13;<br \/>\nAll rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from allnigeriasoccer.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.allnigeriasoccer.com\/read_news.php?nid=49990\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Everton striker and retired Ivory Coast international\u00a0Arouna Kon\u00e9 has named seven countries he believes can win the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations. \u00a0 The Elephants of Ivory Coast are on Kone&#8217;s list, along with Senegal, Morrocco, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana and Egypt.\u00a0 \u00a0 Kone, a veteran of three Africa Cup of Nations, has insisted that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/faca.com.ng\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}