Afcon 2023: Opta tips Our Boys to beat Guinea-Bissau in Nigeria centenary match at the tournament

Group A of Afcon 2023 reaches its climax on Monday as Guinea-Bissau plays Nigeria at the same time as Equatorial Guinea and Cote d’Ivoire battle. With only one point separating the top three teams – Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, and Cote d’Ivoire– and the potential for all three of them to qualify for the knockout stages, it’s all to play for here.

Bottom-placed Guinea-Bissau, meanwhile, are already out of the tournament, having lost both of their first two games. Even a win wouldn’t allow them to overturn the three-point deficit to third-placed Cote d’ Ivore, who beat Guinea-Bissau 2-0 on Matchday 1 and therefore will remain above them in the standings with a superior head-to-head record.

Nigeria earned a narrow but crucial victory over Ivory Coast in their last game, soaking up the pressure with only a 36% share of possession and facing 14 shots. However, those attempts only generated 0.57 xG, with Nigeria largely keeping their opponents at arm’s length and then punishing them at the other end thanks to William Troost-Ekong’s penalty, which did boost their xG total.

A point for Nigeria would guarantee their passage into the knockouts, though with the four best third-placed teams from the six groups at Afcon 2023 also qualifying, the four points the Super Eagles have already accrued might be enough to see them through.

They will be confident of winning this one, though, up against a Guinea-Bissau team who have conceded six goals in two defeats at Afcon 2023. They have also never in their history won an Afcon game, losing eight and drawing three. They have lost their last four in a row, but they have never before lost all three of their group-stage games, so defeat would secure an unwanted first for them on that front.

Nigeria will be hoping to celebrate their 100th Afcon game in this match with a win, becoming the fourth nation to reach that tally. Of the previous three, only one has won their 100th match, though that was Ivory Coast earlier on in this year’s tournament – against Guinea-Bissau.

With stars such as Victor Osimhen, Alex Iwobi, Ademola Lookman, and Kelechi Iheanacho to call upon, it’s hard to imagine anything other than a Nigeria win.

According to the Opta supercomputer, Nigeria are firm favourites to win this game and take a big step towards wrapping up the top spot in Group A. They were victorious in 61.2% of the supercomputer’s pre-match simulations, while Guinea-Bissau won just 18.2%. That leaves the likelihood of the draw at 20.6%.

Nigeria are deemed most likely to top the group ahead of Equatorial Guinea, with whom they drew on MD 1, and currently trail in the group standings on goal difference. However, they face the easier final game on paper, playing a Guinea-Bissau side who have nothing but pride to play for.