Michel Dussuyer: "I see a Guinea win"
Friday's quarter-final in Abidjan between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea looks the hardest to call in the draw.
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Do you see this quarter-final as the most open?
Without a doubt. Nigeria against Angola, South Africa against Cape Verde and Ivory Coast against Mali will be favourites. By contrast, Guinea and DR Congo are two sides of a very similar level. I'm very tempted to say it's 50-50, but as it's a knockout match, there will be a winner and I have to commit to a prediction. So I'm going to back Guinea, a national team that means a lot to me, to win by a narrow margin. But that takes nothing away from DR Congo's qualities.
Why do you favour Guinea in your predictions?
They came out of the toughest group. I really liked their performance against Cameroon (1-1), when they played with ten men against eleven for the whole of the second half, and the one against Gambia (1-0), which was very serious and controlled. I was much less convinced by their match against Senegal (0-2), where they lacked creativity. And against Equatorial Guinea (1-0), they were certainly put under pressure, but they were clinical. It's a well-rounded team with technical quality that concedes very few goals.
"Two teams very close to each other"
Several of their key players, such as Naby Keita, François Kamano and Serhou Guirassy, have had a rather quiet Africa Cup of Nations, for different reasons, but that doesn't really seem to have hurt the team's output...
Keita and Guirassy were injured, and Kamano was suspended after his sending-off against Cameroon. It's true that these temporary absences haven't been too damaging to the team. That means the squad has depth.
DR Congo produced very good performances against Morocco (1-1) in the group stage and against Egypt (1-1, 8-7 on penalties) in the round of 16. Did this team leave you with a good impression?
Yes, they play front-foot football, like Guinea. They also concede few goals, and they have experienced players such as Mbemba, Bakambu, Kakuta and Moutoussamy. Their performances against Morocco and Egypt, two of the tournament favourites, were very good, because they were able to take the game to them. DR Congo's run is all the more interesting given that they had made a very poor start to their qualifying campaign. They are a side that has improved quickly under their new coach, Sébastien Desabre, who has called up a few new players. The winner of this quarter-final should be taken very seriously.
Alexis Billebault