CHAN Semifinals: Morocco, Senegal, Madagascar, and Sudan Brawl for Final Two Spots
by Geoffrey Ejiga
CHAN Semi-Final Fixtures: Who Will Reach the Finals?
Madagascar vs Sudan
The CHAN Semifinals kickoff with a late Madagascar vs Sudan showdown. Although Morocco and Senegal play in the second semifinal game, fans are pitting the Madagascar matchup to be the game of this knockout stage as they and Sudan battle to reach the final and possibly win their first African Nations Championship cup.
Both teams are coming off strong performances in their recent games in this competition, making it a not-so-easy-to-predict game. But our SportTrader experts think they’ve cracked this one, and you can check it out in the Madagascar vs Sudan prediction.
The books are favoring Sudan after knocking out the mighty Algeria, but we believe it could very well go the other way, given Madagascar’s performance in this competition and their H2H.
Madagascar is unbeaten in four of their last five games, winning three. Yet, even more interesting is the fact that Madagascar has won two of its last three H2Hs against Sudan in this competition, with the latest being a 3-0 win in 2023. But we can also see why the mathematical edge is with Sudan, who are now unbeaten in their last ten games, and in 17 of their last 19.
Knocking out Algeria, right after drawing with Senegal and flogging Nigeria 4-0 in the group stage (all tournament favourites) might automatically make Sudan the favourites to lift the trophy at this of the competition.
Morocco vs Senegal
Morocco and Senegal will head into this game already seeing themselves as CHAN winners. Both national teams have lifted the last three titles, with Senegal winning the most recent in 2022 and Morocco lifting the two prior.
Fans already feel the winner of this matchup will go on to lift the African Nations Championship cup. The betting odds favour Morocco in this matchup, which only makes sense for a team that has won 16 of its last 17 games and beat Senegal in four of their last five H2Hs.
In truth, it's looking like a difficult game for Senegal, after their recent form, which saw them win only two of their last six games, while failing to record more than two goals in a game over their last eight matches. But we can't rule out the current CHAN champions just yet.
Their title defense priority might just be what they need to pull off another 1-0 win over Algeria, like they did with Nigeria and Uganda in this tournament. Regardless of the final scoreline, holding the free-firing Morocco attack to few or no goals should be the strategy for a low-scoring Senegal side.
