The Athletic.

Two years on from Senegal ending their wait for glory, Afcon returns this weekend.

Sadio Marni with a chance for history for Senegal.

The Lions of Taranga are the champions.

The Zissius tournament represent M Salas' best chance to finally lay claim to being king of the continent.

Meanwhile, Andre Onana, one of Africa's most high-profile players once again sees his international career in jeopardy.

As ever, with Afcon, there is so much to get into.

I'm Ayahuakimulare.

Welcome to the Athletic Football podcast.

In for this one, we have a man who's played three Afcons reaching the 2012 final with the Ivory Coast. Sol Bamba, so good to have you with us. Good to be here, thank you for the invite, lads. And also flying the flag for the athletic, and he's going to be heading out himself. We've got Jay Harris as well. Jay, you're ready, man.

32 degrees out there.

Yeah, I mean, you just told me that a second ago and I'm a little bit worried now, so I'm definitely going to have to order some shorts in the next week or two. Let's talk about this tournament. Look, Afcon comes with its controversies. It comes with its drama. And in Yoraba, we call it Wahala. But inevitably, the tournament goes on and it provides a spectacle for African fans and global fans in tow. Now, the tournament is being hosted in the Ivory Coast

for the first time since 1984. So, this is massive for the Ivory Coast, isn't it?

Absolutely huge. Listen, we're so excited. Obviously, it was meant to be a couple years before and unfortunately with everything happened in Africa. It was a season where it was a lot of rain and all that. So we change it with Cameroon. So the fans and the whole country is buzzing. We can't wait for it. You know, we're only a couple days away it. We're ready. We want to show a good spectacle. We want to show to the word we can host events like that. And I think it'd be fantastic. I know I'm a bit biased, of course, but honestly, I can't wait. The oldest stage of my ready, the fan can't wait. The facilities are there, you know, we have to give credit to the

Federation, you know, and our President, Alasan, what,ah, because he meant like a big point where, you know, he want to make sure, like, people remember that have come. So we have to give him credit for that, like, everything is ready, and we just wait for the player to give us, like, the base of spectacles

they can.

Yeah, for sure.

I mean,

they always say,

you know,

having... and we just wait for the player to give us like the best specter because they can't.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, they always say, you know, having home advantage could be a really

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