Fans will be hoping the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations will buck a worrying recent trend and that the goals will flow at the continent’s showpiece tournament in the Ivory Coast that gets under way on Saturday.
The average number of goals scored per game has decreased in every finals since 2008, culminating in just 1.92 per match in Cameroon two years ago.
That is not a record low, there have been four finals tournaments where fewer goals per game have been scored, but the numbers are on the slide.
Perhaps not surprisingly the early years were the best for goals, but there were fewer matches played – just three in the inaugural 1957 tournament – so we can disregard those. But for the record the average of 4.50 goals per game at the 1962 finals in Ethiopia, when four matches were played, is the best.
But if we only look finals where 16 games or more have been staged, which has been the case since 1968, then the early tournaments still feature heavily, with perhaps one surprising modern-day addition.
There was an average of 3.25 goals scored in each match at those 1968 finals, also held in Ethiopia, helped by the free-scoring Ghanaians, who managed 11 goals in five games but were runners-up to Congo-Kinshasa (now DR Congo).
The trend continued for the next three tournaments in a row, as both the 1970 and 1972 finals had an average of 3.19 goals per game, and in 1974 it was 3.18.
But fifth on our list is the 2008 tournament that was staged in Ghana where, out of almost nowhere, there was an average of 3.09 goals scored in the 32 matches.
For whatever reason, teams found their groove, though there were some wonderful players taking part. The Golden Generation of Ghana was just emerging, while Ivory Coast already had theirs in
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