Total Africa Cup of Nations 2019

The Total Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) is Africa’s largest event and is the third largest football competition in the world after the FIFA World Cup and the UEFA European Championship. Total is the title sponsor of the tournament as part of its eight-year partnership with CAF. Total AFCON 2019 will be held from June 21 to July 19 in Egypt.

This year’s competition will be a tournament of many firsts. This will be the first Total AFCON to be held in the summer months of June and July, and the first African tournament involving 24 teams, with Madagascar, Mauritania and Burundi participating for the first time. It is also the first AFCON to be held in North Africa since 2006.

The 24 teams will be divided into six groups of four for the group stages. The top two teams from each group and the four best third-placed teams will qualify for the round of 16. Egypt, the host nation, will be seeded in Group A. Here’s the final composition of the six groups:

Fifty-one teams entered the qualification stages to try to win a place in the final tournament. The qualification stages lasted two years, from March 2017 to March 2019. 

The 32^nd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations

This year’s Total AFCON will be the tournament’s 32^nd edition. The first edition of the Africa Cup of Nations was held in 1957 in Sudan. Since 1968, it has been held once every two years and, as of 2013, the tournament has been held in odd-numbered years to avoid a conflict with the FIFA World Cup.

Fourteen different countries have won the Africa Cup of Nations. Egypt leads the tally with seven wins, followed by Cameroon with five wins. The previous edition of the Total Africa Cup of Nations, held in Gabon in 2017, saw Cameroon beat Egypt 1-0 in the final to deny the most successful African country its eighth AFCON title.