African Cup Of Nations 2012

The African Cup of Nations is taking place in the joint host countries of Equatorial Guinea & Gabon from the 21st of January to the 12th February.

Index Spreads & FIFA World Rankings

Who Are The Favourites?
On paper, the strongest team has to be Ivory Coast -with seven Premiership players, including the top class quartet of Drogba, Kalou, Toure & Eboue. Ghana will be without the services of the influential Michael Essien who is currenty out injured. Pantsil, Asamoah and Gyan are all regular starters -and much will depend on them.

The Indomitable Lions, better known as Cameroon under-achieved in 2004 and 2006 before reaching the final in 2006. Their front two of Inter's Samuel Eto'o and Mallorca's Pierre Webo will fancy their chances of grabbing a few goals in the group stages -but the real competition begins in the second stage. They should have enough class to get them through to the semi-finals, but may meet their match in the form of the Ivory Coast.
The Indomitable Lions, better known as Nigeria have almost a full team of Premiership recruits -with Yobo, MIkel, Yakabu, Olofinjana, Etuhu, Shittu and Kanu (plus Obefami Martins from Wolfsburg).

Games You Shouldn't Miss!
You can find the games on British Eurosport and all of these should be worth a look:

Who Will Win It?
Should the games go to form (and the African Nations Cup is usually quite good), we should see a good clash of heavyweights in the quarter-final with Ghana >Algeria doing battle. If you're looking for a prediction then I would expect the two semi-finals to be Ghana v Nigeria and Ivory Coast v Cameroon , with the pre-tournament favourites Ghana and Ivory Coast facing off in the final in Luanda on Sunday 31st of January.

And the winner? Well for me it has to be the Ivory Coast, who are packed full with talented players and have the added advantage of having coach Vahid Halilhodzic in place for the last eighteen months -a luxury for a team who change their head man more often than Manchester City! both Drogba and Kalou are on good form for the Ivorians and should get amongst the goals right from the start of the tournament.

So get on the Cote d'Ivoire before they rocket past the 31on offer with Sporting Index!

Tables Rankings & Spreads
Sporting Index Group Guide:Winner: 25pts; Runner-up: 10pts; Third: 5pts; Fourth: 0pts.

Trading Talk - African Cup of Nations Preview

Here is the Sporting Index Trading Talk preview for the tournament:

There is a golden opportunity for spread punters to not only start thinking about the football World Cup but also get a glimpse at some of the sides that will be present for the June tournament, as the African Cup of Nations kicks-off on 10 th January. Algeria, Cameroon, Nigeria, Ivory Coast and Ghana will be doubling their bids for the trophy next month in Angola with preparations for the larger tournament in June.

Ivory Coast have been considered Africa's hottest prospect for a while, reflected in their favouritism in their outright index spread of 28-31pts for the tournament (50pts for winner, 30pts runner-up, 20pts for losing semi-finalist and 10pts for reaching the last eight). The Elephants are also favourite to progress furthest of all the continent's representatives in the World Cup with an outright spread of 17-20pts, while Cameroon are the closest African side behind them with a spread of 10-13pts.

With players such as Chelsea's Didier Drogba and Salomon Kalou leading their front line, Sporting Index's traders are expecting plenty of buyers of Ivory Coast's match goals spreads throughout the tournament, and would not be surprised to see either take the tournament's golden boot. With Manchester City's Kolo Touré ruling defence in the same side, match supremacy spread buyers may be also be expecting profits after Ivory Coast games.

The Indomitable Lions of Cameroon possess another prolific striker who has impressed during his time in Europe - Samuel Eto'o. Spread bettors will be aware that the Inter Milan man is the tournament's all-time top scorer with 16 goals and spread buyers of his country's outright index at 23 and buyers of his goals spreads hope he impresses again in Angola. Cameroon have won the ANC four times previously and buyers of Cameroon's Group D index at 19 (25pts for winning group, 10pts for runner-up, 5pts for third) will hope they fulfill their billing as tournament third-favourites and easily make it through to the knockout stages.

Spread punters would be foolish to ignore Egypt, six time winners of the African Nations Cup, including the last two tournaments, but with a spread of 14-17 they are behind even Nigeria in Sporting Index's outright index market. Of more interest to spread buyers and sellers, and making up the current big three of African football are Ghana. Chelsea's Michael Essien and Inter's Sulley Muntari, formerly of Portsmouth, will be familiar to spread bettors and buyers of the Black Stars' outright index at 24pts and Group B index spread at 15 will hope these midfielders perform as well in the ANC as we have seen them play for their respective clubs. However, sellers of their group index spread will of course have noted that they share Group B with Ivory Coast and that a lack of firepower could be the factor that leads Ghana to a premature exit from the Cup.