Who wins AFCON 2025?

The bell tolls already. From December 21, 2025 to January 18, 2026, the world will be treated to the best of African football, once again.

My immediate feeling is that Nigeria can win AFCON 2025, but the Super Eagles will not!

It has been a battle between my heart (for patriotic reasons) that wills the Eagles to win it, and my head that tells me they are not good enough to win it this time around.

The draws of the TotalEnergies CAF African Cup of Nations were concluded last week in Rabat, Morocco. The road to the most prestigious football championship in Africa was, thus, flung open to analysts and soothsayers, and the wagering war has begun.

So far, I see nothing in my Crystal ball that even remotely suggests that the Super Eagles are one of the favorites to win it.

Can they? Yes, on paper. Will they? In my realistic consideration, far from it.

However, in football, anything can happen, more so that, as the cliché goes, ‘there are no more minnows in African football’.

For many AFCONs before now, my support for the national team of Nigeria has been unflinching, and my optimism upbeat and infectious. This has been based on candid assessments, without reckless bias. The eventual results have largely fallen short of my predictions. So, I am not an authority on the subject of predicting who wins.

This time around, my head and my heart are in conflict. My first glimpse at the Crystal ball since the draws were made last week shows that on January 18, 2026, there is no eagle perching on the coveted trophy and lifting it from the Mediterranean Sea southwards across the Sahara Desert to the Savanah grasslands and the little tropical (rain) forests of Nigeria. My

What I rather see is the biggest, most successful and, probably, the best