Senegal and Equatorial Guinea will do battle for a place in the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations semifinals when they meet at the Ahmadou Ahidjo Stadium in Cameroonian city of Yaoundé on Sunday.
Kick-off is scheduled for 19h00 GMT.
Senegal reached the last eight after a hard-fought 2-0 win over Cape Verde underlining both their pedigree and potency.
Victory over the Blue Sharks was proceeded by draws against Malawi and Guinea, while they beat Zimbabwe in their opening match.
The Lions of Teranga are yet to concede a single goal in the competition due to defensive discipline led by the Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly and Edouard Mendy of Chelsea.
Senegal coach Aliou Cisse will have Watford winger Ismaila Sarr at his disposal after recovering from an injury.
Liverpool star Sadio Mane is likely to feature for Teranga Lions against Equatorial Guinea following his injury scare during the team’s clash with Cape Verde.
“We are going to approach this match as we have done before, with humility and confidence. We will play against a good team from Equatorial Guinea that we know well,” Cisse said in pre-match conference.
“We have great respect for this team which has good players. We have been gaining momentum since the start of the competition and we will play our best football to get to the semi-finals. Sadio Mané is doing better. We hope to get him back for tomorrow’s game.”
Equatorial Guinea, meanwhile, sailed into the quarterfinal stages of the competition following a 6-5 win over Mali on penalties.
The Nzalang Nacional are participating in the Africa Cup of Nations for the third time in history and hope to do as in 2015 or better, when they reached the semifinals.
“Our team is ready, both physically and mentally. We respect Senegal, runners up of the previous edition,” said Equatorial Guinea coach Juan Micha.
“It will be a final for us, and we will play our game to put on a good match and go as far as possible. It’s true that we won against Senegal in 2012 AFCON but we are not the favorites this time.”
The last meeting between Senegal and Equatorial Guinea was on 17 November 2018.
Senegal claimed a 1-0 win over Equatorial Guinea 1in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualifier which was played at the Estadio de Bata in Bata.
