The Africa Cup of Nations, once again promises to be a fiercely competitive tournament as the teams battle it out for the cup. Twenty-four teams out of forty-eight, managed to play their way to the top of their groups during the qualifiers. And now the real battle is about to begin, warriors on the field, kicking, heading and dribbling their way to the prized trophy. Skilled players, eager to make their countries proud and trash their opponents on the pitch, would be a source of entertainment and perhaps even more so, anxiety, over the next few weeks. Everyone is eager to win.

Over the years we have watched some of Africa’s best teams play their hearts out in the quest to be crowned champions. The Pharaoh’s of Egypt have managed a record number of seven wins and an unbeaten three-year winning streak. Just like Egypt, the Black Stars of Ghana have managed to qualify a total of nine times for the finals but has only managed four wins. Algeria has shown as strong front over their last couple of matches, going on to become victors of the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup. I suppose the question on minds of several fans is, who is carrying the trophy?

Eureka’s team has pored over through the data, having spent a lot of time studying it and reading its patterns. Who are our favourites for the tournament?

 

1. Determining the features:

As is typical of our process, we sought to determine the main features of our prediction model. What factors did we consider?  There were several key features we needed to pay attention to: performance during the qualifiers stage, performance in previous AFCON tournaments, a team’s general ranking by FIFA, performance in other recent matches like the friendlies, the location of the tournament, groupings within the tournament, weather conditions, etc.

 

2. How significant a predictor is each feature?

Which variables were more significant in determining who would progress to the finals? We determined one huge factor in making our prediction was a team’s current strength/form and this weighed quite heavily for us. Data for this includes, data from the qualifiers stage like the points gained and goals scored. it also includes data on a team’s FIFA ranking.  This data pointed us to mostly to Northern Africa as countries like Morocco (ranking of 28), Algeria (32) and Tunisia (29) enjoy some of the highest ranking in Africa and also the scored some of the highest points in the qualifiers stage.

While performance in previous AFCON tournaments was an important factor to consider, recent performance held more significance. Hence, performance of teams in other games like friendlies over the past year, was also factored in. also considering that the just ended FIFA Arab Cup gave the northern African countries several opportunities to play cohesively as a team and improve their form, and interestingly, the winning team for this tournament (involving several Arab countries from across the world) came from North Africa.

 

3. So, the big question, who are our favourites for the finals?

After going through the process of determining the various features of our prediction model and weighting them by their level of significance, we shortlisted the two countries we believe would make it to the top.

With a touch of the Eureka factor, our skills and expertise in data analysis, our attention to detail and our eye for spotting what matters the most, our team predicted an Algeria versus Morocco face off in the final.

The experience and skill of our team, to a large extent, makes up for the unknowns. For in every prediction, there are factors for which data may be hard to come by. We cannot wait to experience the tournament and we look forward to bringing you more insights.

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