These Footballers Could Play At AFCON-2024 😱😳🤯
These Footballers Could Play At AFCON-2024 😱😳🤯
So, the African Cup of Nations 2024 has begun!
The Inside Football channel offers you a closer look at the other side of the tournament, giving you the footballers who had every chance to play for African countries, but who eventually chose to represent other teams! Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappe... Stop-stop-stop! We’ll get to them later!
In the meantime, leave us a like so that as many football fans as possible can get to know very interesting info! With that out of the way, let's get started! Let's get into it!
Cape Verde
Cape Verde is one of the outsiders of the tournament for obvious reasons: the team doesn’t have a single star to brag about, the highest price tag on Transfermarkt has the 22-year-old Toulouse centre-back Logan Costa — have you heard about this guy? Maybe some of you did, but the average football fan most likely is hearing his name for the first time.
Chances of this picturesque country would have been perceived much differently if only fate made things the other way, the way in which one particular guy would represent the Blues Sharks.. HIS MAJESTY... CRISTIANO RONALDO! The matter is that Ronaldo's paternal great-grandmother is a native of Cape Verde. Isabel Rosa lived on the island of Sao Vicente [the second most populous in the country], though at the age of 16 she moved to Madeira, where Cristiano was eventually born. In 2015, journalist Guillem Balagué published Ronaldo’s biography, where he suggested that African roots explain his muscular strength.
Who knows how Cristiano's career would have turned out if he had been born in Cape Verde, but such a talent couldn’t help but to reveal itself in football somehow, don’t you agree? Anyway, we would love to watch Ronaldo performing at this African Cup campaign and how he would lead Cape Verde to triumph! Press the like button if you'd like to see it too!
Cameroon
The national team of Cameroon is usually among favourites to capture the African Cup of Nations trophy, but this year it doesn’t have a top squad capable of fighting for victory in the tournament - in the prediction made by the Opta analytical center, Rigober Song's team is ranked only seventh... The main stars of the current roster are Onana and Anguissa. Very, very doubtful pick to win the whole thing...
Imagine how much higher would they be in the ranking if the decision to play for Cameroon was made by elite players like... KYLIAN MBAPPE and AURELIEN TCHOUAMENI. And there were also options with Youssoufa MOUKOKO and Samuel Umtiti. Okay, let's be honest - the 2018 world champion Umtiti, who was born in the capital of Cameroon, Yaoundé, hasn’t been much of a top player for quite a while. The other three candidates, on the other hand, would bring a lot of quality to the Indomitable Lions: 19-year-old Moukoko, also born in Yaounde, is considered one of the most promising strikers in Europe's top football, playing for Borussia Dortmund and Germany.
Tchouameni is a top star who plays for Real Madrid and France, he was born in the French town of Rouen. Why is he associated with Cameroon? You see, his father is… that’s right… Cameroonian! "Cameroon is a part of me. I have always supported this country and the national team," Aurelien claimed.
Mbappe is definitely the main star on this potential Cameroon internationals list. Kylian's father, Wilfried, was born in the city of Douala, Cameroon. The star forward of the French national team and Paris Saint-Germain doesn’t forget his roots and went on a 3-day tour of Cameroon last summer. "I'm so happy to be here," Kylian declared upon arriving at his kind's native harbour.
How happy all Cameroonians would be if prime Umtiti, Moukoko, Tchouameni and... Kylian Mbappe all were a part of their national team!
Algeria
Next up we have Algeria, the two time AFCON champion! This is indeed a strong and balanced squad, rightly included in the TOP-4 tournament favourites. The main stars of the Greens are known to many – they are Riyad Mahrez, Bennacer, Rayan Aït-Nouri, Houssem Aouar and others. However, there’s a guy who could have become the main man of this roster... KARIM BENZEMA!
Benzema is of Algerian descent and his parents are both originally from Algeria. Despite that, Karim was born in the city of Lyon, France, where he first made his name known by the entire football world, and the French football federation quickly took the prospect to the youth and national teams. Now that’s actually sad! We'd love to see a Mahrez-Benzema duo shining in 'Les Fennecs'!
Nigeria
Alright, we think Nigeria wouldn’t mind such big names as Jamal Musiala or Bukayo Saka, or even prime Dele Alli in its ranks, don’t you agree? All these famous footballers had the opportunity to play for the Super Eagles: both midfielders from Bayern and Everton have a Nigerian father, while the Arsenal winger was born into a family of Nigerian emigrants.
