 So, the first half of the Sportsmax zone for this Wednesday dominated by cricket. We're taking a detour now to football on the zone. What was a glittering field of 24 teams has now been cut down to eight as the Africa Cup of Nations, the most prestigious tournament on the continent, is now firmly at the business end of proceedings. Many pre-tournament favourites have made their exits, including defending champion Senegal, who fell to hosts Ivory Coast on penalties, and World Cup semi-finalists Morocco, who were knocked out by South Africa, both at the round of 16. Now that the dust has somewhat settled, let's see the four quarter-final matchups. They will be played this weekend in Nigeria against Angola, Cape Verde against South Africa, Mali taking on the hosts, and the Democratic Republic of Congo taking on Guinea. These matches will be shown on Sportsmax 2 on Saturday and Sunday, two of them on Saturday and the other two on Sunday. Now not a field this that many would have expected coming into the tournament, joining us to dissect the action so far, and preview what is to come is our in-house football analyst, Ligea Williams. Lige, great to have you on again. As we said, a couple of surprises and a couple of teams expected to be in the final eight, not there, I guess heading that list would be Morocco. Yeah, I think so. A lot of people had them as the pre-tournament favorites, despite all the signs pointing towards another African team not winning usually in these regions. But I think from the first game, the strength that they showed, I'm actually really surprised, not necessarily that they haven't gone on to win it, but the fact that they haven't gone even further in the tournament, it was an especially to be knocked out by South Africa. And I think their performance really against South Africa really summed up what they have been providing throughout the tournament. They were dominant. They created a lot of chances of the second most big chances missed in the tournament, the first place I'll get on to in a bit. But yeah, I think that they weren't clinically enough throughout the tournament and I think that's what caused them in the end. Yeah, we want to continue dissecting what has happened so far. But just on a sideline story, the Africa Cup of Nations for television hasn't been as high profile, obviously, as Euro or some of the other major tournaments that we've been looking at. But Sportsmax has it live since it started. How attractive has the football been in your estimation, Lige, as a TV product? You know, actually, I'm a bit surprised, actually. I think that the quality of football has been really good. And I think that's just an indication of how football and especially coaching has been improving all across the world. I think that the teams have been playing some really good stuff. And obviously, you have some teams that play the smash and grab football, but that happens everywhere in the world. I think that in terms of what people usually expect from African teams, in terms of a lot of running, a lot of pace, a lot of power, PMP as they would call it. But I think that the attractiveness of football and the product as well, especially how they've put it across and it was a late decision to make it go to every course in the first place. So I think that in terms of the overall execution of everything that's going on, I think it's a really good product and the unpredictability. I think it's the most unpredictable tournament in all of football because, you know, a small, you know, just factoid. The eight teams in this quarterfinal, none of them made the quarterfinal in the last edition of the tournament. So it's a completely new quarterfinal set from last edition to this one. So that goes to show that how fluid and how closely, how good closely the teams are in the competition. So I think that shows that there's a lot of improvement in African football and that there is a lot of surprises in store for the rest of the tournament as well. Yeah, Lance mentioned Morocco, Senegal, another team that, of course, has surprised us with their exit. Any other teams that you expected to be at this point in the competition and is not here? Definitely Algeria. Algeria won the tournament in 2019, I believe. And this is not their second time falling in the group stages. They sat there, coached, they've just been going through. They still have a lot of the players. And I mentioned in the first segment that we did previewing the tournament and I hope that the team was very similar to what they had in 2019 and that may have been a problem. They didn't seem to get off to any footing and it just wasn't a good performance from them whatsoever. So I think they would be my biggest disappointment. Ghana and a lot of people would like to see them have gone further in the tournament. But I think without Thomas' party, that was always going to be a big ass. So I think really Algeria is the most disappointing team out of the ones that didn't make it into the knockout stages. Which team has surprised you most of all the teams so far? Oh, surprise. Definitely Cape Verde. Cape Verde, I think they have come out there and been so far. They did really well in the group stages. Two wins and a draw and then they got out of their game against Mauritania. I think they did really well to get the result there because Mauritania offered a lot, especially offensively. And it was a late penalty, a mistake actually that gifted them the win. So I think that they're a team to be reckoned with. They're flying high, a lot of confidence right now. We're going to see if they can keep this up in the quarter-final stages. But I think they're the biggest surprise of the tournament so far. Yeah, you spoke about the poor finishing on the part of Morocco earlier. I found a similar thing with Egypt when I watched a lot of their matches as well. And generally in the tournament, a lot of the matches I've watched, the finishing has not been as clinical as you would want at that level. I just want to get your thoughts on whether that is an area that has been lacking generally in the tournament or has it just been the big teams who we expected to be scoring a lot of the goals who were not producing? Yeah, I think APTA gave out a statistic sheet and since it started tracking African corporations, I believe in 2007, at this stage, this is the most big chance it's missed in a single tournament. So you are right by that observation. In terms of Egypt specifically, I think who are doing international football, it's much slower, it's much player dependent. It's because systems take so long of a time to really get embedded in a team. So in terms of them losing Mo Salah, someone who they moved from playing on the right for them to now playing in a central space, who would be their creative and goalscoring hub. I think losing him, it was I was going to be uphill, but I didn't expect him to do it. But even when they had him, though? Yeah, I mean, Salah himself was underperforming as well. He wasn't creating well and he wasn't finishing well either. Even the assist that he got in the tournament was a mis-kick on his part in terms of the finish. But even Nigeria, Nigeria are going at a frantic, frantic rate in terms of missing chances and they've missed 12 big chances so far and I think Victor Ossimen has been the biggest, he's been the biggest culprit of all that five big chances missed on his own. And a lot of people are saying that they're going to go as far as Victor Ossimen can take them and he has to buckle down now because he has one goal, one assist in the tournament so far. That's not good enough. Nigeria themselves have only scored five goals in their four games, but I think their defense has been shining through. And as a coach, as an analyst, they can look at these things as, there's two sides of the coin to it because at the end of the day, obviously you want the team to be converting the chances that you're creating as a coach, but at the same time, you have to be happy that the team is creating the chances in the first place and you trust that your world class striker and your other good players around him are going to eventually start putting those chances in the back of the net. So I think Nigeria are the strongest team at this current moment. I think their midfield, what they've done with their backline and midfield has been extremely impressive as well. We'll speak about Alexi Woby, Arsenal Productions of course and Franconieka in the midfield. That's not a usual midfield partnership, but I think their mix of technicality and physicality, especially with their counter-attacking style has been really good. Ossimen has been hustling and harrying all tournament, not getting the goals, but he's still contributing. And then you speak about Ademola Lukman, who has been fantastic. Simon on the right hand side and then off the bench, you have Ian Nacho. You have so many players that can cause a real difference to this team. So Nigeria are looking extremely strong. Despite the missed chances, I think their defence is the strongest in the tournament so far. And if they were just... All I need is one game to explode. Hopefully that game doesn't miss them too much. Yeah, very much the case. So you said earlier that you were most surprised by Cape Verde and their performance getting to the quarter-final stage. How about this Guinea team? Yeah, you know, that's a surprise as well. But I think that they've had a slightly easier road because I wouldn't say it's a surprise that they pulled off the win in the round of 16 because they're one of the better third-place teams. They were the best third-place teams, so they got a role and then they went on to move on. And that was against Equatorial Guinea. Yeah, so that's a big rivalry game for them. And I think, regardless, I was going to be a tough game. So I'm not saying that Cape Verde are a more surprising team because of the quality of their displays. I think Guinea are more grinding out the results. So that's why I would lean towards Cape Verde as opposed to Guinea. All right, let's rush through with these quarter-final matches then in terms of predictions and quick analysis. First semifinal, first quarter-final, by the way, all the quarter-final matches will be live on Sports Max and Sports Max 2. The three o'clock game on Saturday, which is Congo versus Guinea, will be live on Sports Max. All the others will be live on Sports Max 2, the two games on Friday, and the first game on Saturday. So game number one, Nigeria versus Angola. Yeah, I see Nigeria getting the win. I think it's going to be a tight one. Maybe a lot of goals involved because Angola have been really pushing forward and they are a really good attacking team. Two players with three goals so far in the tournament. So I think that one's going to have goals, but I think Nigeria is going to edge that one. Congo, Guinea. Ooh, that's a tough one. I can see that one going to penalties or even being very close, being separated by one goal. Why not Guinea? Why not Guinea? Why not? They're on the roll. Mali versus Ivory Coast. No, that's a very good game. I think that's the best tie in the quarterfinals round, because Mali are a team that I spoke about before the tournament. I was wondering why they didn't bring one of the best young stars in the world, you know, in the area, but they've been doing just fine. I think they are a really good team. Ivory Coast, they actually sat their manager at the end of the group stages because they came third. They got four in from Equatorial Guinea, sat Jean-Louis Gillet and hired Faye, I believe his name is Predon Sam. They're a former player. They got the win against all odds, really, against Senegal. And I think that midfield is very important to me, and I think their strongest midfield is the strongest in the tournament. And they're at home. I would say that they don't want to disappoint their home fans, but they already got four, but maybe they're on the rebounds. I'm going to say that they're going to get the edge over Mali. Yeah, and the final one is Cape Verde against South Africa. Some would say what an opportunity for South Africa to push on to the last four of the Africa Cup of Nations. And especially after that performance against Morocco, they will be definitely trying to do that. But Cape Verde are also in a role similar to Guinea. So my prediction for that game, I'm going to say Cape Verde will edge it in that game as well. Yeah, four fantastic quarter-final matches in the Africa Cup of Nations. As I said earlier, live on Sportsmax, starting at Friday at 12 o'clock, Jamaica time. That's one Eastern Caribbean time with the last quarter-final set for Saturday, starting at 3 p.m. Jamaica time for Eastern Caribbean time. Keep it locked to your home of champions with the champion predictor, Leger Williams. He'll be back next week to talk us through the quarter-finals and look ahead to the semis.