Many of the key players at the Africa Cup of Nations finals will be well known to supporters but each tournament throws up new stars, many of them young and up-and-coming players.
SuperSport.com looks at five players aged 21 and under who are possible contenders to make waves at this month’s tournament in the Ivory Coast.
Karim Konate: Hosts Ivory Coast have yet to settle on their attack for the Cup of Nations opener against Guinea Bissau on Saturday but the 19-year-old has every chance of being included in the starting line-up, perhaps alongside Sebastian Haller.
Konate will only be 20 in March but already has 13 caps, all but one of them as a substitute as coach Jean Louis Gasset has sought to expose systematically him to the rigours of international competition. He has had plenty of exposure in recent months, also competing with his Austrian club Salzburg in the Champions League.
Konate’s speed and technique were already evident when before joined the Mimosifcom Academy, the training centre located in the Abidjan suburb of Sol Béni and which belongs to the ASEC Abidjan. He quickly broke through into the first team and was scoring frequently, which led to him being targeted by many European clubs. “I chose Salzburg.
It was the best choice given their past with African players and with the aim of developing myself,” he explained. ”Salzburg came to Abidjan and then invited me to visit their facilities. I said to myself that this was the club for me.” He signed a contract until 2027 and earned ASEC a 3.5 million euros transfer fee.
Ernest Nuamah: One of the many success stories to come out of the Right to Dream Academy in Ghana, Nuamah is now at one of the biggest clubs in Europe and not yet 21 years old. Last season he scored 15 goals in the Danish Superliga playing for FC Nordsjaelland, the club that is owned by the academy and where other top players like Mohammed Kudus have come through and gone onto bigger things.
His Danish achievements earned Nuamah a first cap for the Black Stars in June against Madagascar in the last of the Cup of Nations qualifiers. He has since move to Olympique Lyonnaise, although on loan through a deal that involved him being sold to Belgium’s Molenbeek and then sent to France. It has been a poor season for Lyon although they have finally worked their way out of the relegation zone.
Nuamah has featured in 14 of the 17 Ligue 1 matches played this season, a marked level up from Denmark and where he has more than held his own. Now Ghana will be hoping he can prove one of the bright young stars of the tournament in their neighbouring country.
Lamine Camara: Voted as the Best Young African Player of the year at the recent Confederation of African Football awards, the young midfielder is one of the new faces in the Senegal squad, hoping to help his more experienced teammates hold onto their African crown.
The 20-year-old Camara is one of the many exports from the fabled Generation Foot academy to move to Metz, a path previously trodden by the likes of Sadio Mane and Ismaliia Sarr. Camara arrived at he French club in March, straight from helping Senegal with U-20 Africa Cup of Nations in Cairo where he was among the most outstanding performers.
He got sent off in only his second Ligue 2 game but still helped Metz to promotion and in this season has not missed a single outing, rapidly enhancing his reputation. His debut for Senegal in the World Cup qualifier against South Sudan in November was crowned with a goal and his progress adds to the many exciting options already available to coach Aliou Cisse.
Yankuba Minteh: The teenager has all the ingredients to emerge as one of the sensations of the tournament in the Ivory Coast, albeit he has made only one appearance for his country. Minteh came on a substitute in Gambia’s decisive qualifier against Congo in September to score and help the small west African country qualify for a second successive tournament.
On loan from Newcastle United at Feyenoord in the Netherlands, he has also scored in the Champions League this season and been a revelation in the Dutch league. The 19-year-old Minteh will be the go-to player for coach Tom Saintfiet, who is hoping to have Gambia repeating some of the shock result they pulled off at the last finals in Cameroon two years ago.
Wilfried Nathan Douala: There were some strange choices when Cameroon coach Rigobert Song named his selection for the tournament in the Ivory Coast, not least leaving out the Bayern Munich striker Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting in favour of the unknown 17-year-old Douala.
Few had ever heard of the attacker from Victoria United and when the first pictures began to circulate of the player, it drew much sarcastic comment and Douala looks much older than he claimed to be, setting off something of a soap opera in which Cameroon Football Federation president, and former African Footballer of the Year Samuel Eto’o, has been accused of favouring the player and his club, who won promotion to the top flight in Cameroon last season. Allegedly born in 2006, Douala would be youngest player at the finals in the Ivory Coast, which get underway on Saturday.