AFCON 2021: Africa’s superstars primed to break tournament’s goal barrier

The Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) – despite the thrill it generates – is a notoriously goal-shy tournament: no top scorer of the competition has registered more than five goals since the 1998 edition.

Since Benni McCarthy and Hossam Hassan both scored seven goals each in Burkina Faso ‘98, none of the premium attacking talents in Africa have come close.

The most we have seen since then in any of the 11 subsequent AFCONs since then is five goals, which has only occurred once each across five of those tournaments.

Shaun Bartlett (2000), Samuel Eto’o (2006, 2008), Mohammed Nagy "Gedo" (2010) and most recently Odion Ighalo (2019) are the last players to score five times in a single AFCON tournament.

However, there are reasons to believe that the five-goal barrier could be shattered in Cameroon, which will be explored below.

The AFCON was recently increased from a 16 to a 24-team tournament, which means more games and, consequently, more goals. The change was effected by CAF for the first time in the 2019 edition hosted by Egypt, where Odion Ighalo scored five goals in seven games. 

Not only did that tally win him the Golden Boot, but it was also the first time in nine years (five AFCONs) that anyone had scored that much.

And with the level of quality among African players significantly higher than it was in 2019, we may be in for a goal-glut in Cameroon.

The increment in teams not only affords the goalscorers an opportunity to play more games, but it could also see them face weaker teams, thus expanding their goalscoring chances even further.

A good example of that is Sadio Mane, who will play against Malawi and Zimbabwe in the group stages. If Mane plays at his normal world-class level against those two teams (who may not have qualified if this was still a 16-team tournament), he may be an early contender for the Golden Boot.

As earlier mentioned, the talent pool in African football right now is so much bigger than we’re accustomed to. Almost all 24 teams have at least one potent goal threat and certain teams can boast of multiple players worthy of the ‘world class’ tag.

Having already mentioned Mane, it is only right to keep an eye out for his Liverpool teammate Mohamed Salah as well. Arguably the best player in the world right now, Salah heads into the AFCON as Egypt’s major source of optimism.

He is the pre-tournament favourite to win the AFCON Golden Boot and you would not bet against him scoring more than five goals, or maybe even breaking the all-time goals record set by Ndaye Mulamba (nine goals) for Zaire in 1974.

Riyad Mahrez scored three goals to help Algeria win the AFCON in 2019, it would not be out of this world to expect him to improve on those numbers as the Desert Foxes chase a successful title defence.

Other potential record-breaking goalscorers could be Cameroon’s Karl Toko-Ekambi who has been in great form for Olympique Lyon this season and may just spark into life while playing in front of his home crowd.

Nigeria’s Taiwo Awoniyi has also been outstanding for Union Berlin this season in the German Bundesliga this season and if he leads the line for the Super Eagles in the absence of Victor Osimhen and Paul Onuachu, he could be another streaky goalscorer.