Nigeria v Angola Betting Tips [2 February 2024]

Nigeria and Angola will seek to extend their impressive runs at the 2023 AFCON when they meet in the quarterfinals on Friday. Both nations were impressive in their Round of 16 matches, Nigeria beating Cameroon as Angola brushed Namibia aside. Ademola Lookman’s brace delivered Nigeria's 2-0 win over Cameroon, to set up this encounter. The win was however dampened by goalkeeper Stanley Nwabali’s injury late in the match. The Chippa United keeper would be replaced by Francis Uzoho, who went on to preserve the clean sheet. With three straight wins and clean sheets at the tournament, Nigeria will be confident for this game. They have now won seven of their last nine matches at the AFCON competition. Nigeria and Angola last met competitively in 2005. Across the two legs in World Cup qualification, Angola won 2-1 and went on to deny Nigeria a World Cup 2006 slot. Nigeria thus have reason to go for revenge here. Having lost just once in 12 matches, Nigeria will feel they can get their measure of revenge. An outstanding stat in their matches, however, is that all the last seven had under 2.5 goals. It is the same case in eight of their last 10 AFCON matches.

The only time Angola lost to Nigeria was in the CHAN competition in 2018, but that 2-1 defeat in extra time is not registered with FIFA. Angola will thus hope to extend their head-to-head advantage over the Super Eagles. Starting this tournament, Angola were among the underdogs, but here they are vying for a semi final place. They will still assume the underdogs’ profile coming here but three straight wins ahead of this game should command some respect from Nigeria. Angola have also posted clean sheets in their last two matches. Meanwhile, they’ve scored at least twice in the last three matches. a 3-0 win over Namibia in the round of 16 was a big statement of intent but they know this one will be tougher. Adilson Neblu’s early red card did not deter them as Gelson Dala scored twice before Mabululu sealed it with a third in the second half. Dala, on four goals in four, will be the dangerman here, sensing he can also go for the top scorer’s accolade. Angola remain the dark horses but having gone unbeaten in nine matches says a lot about their strength as a team. In those nine matches though, they drew six.

Two nations without recent great scoring runs face off here. Nigeria have scored more than a goal in just one of their last seven matches. Angola failed to score in half of their last eight matches, even though their scoring run at AFCON has been good. This will be one of the toughest tests Angola will have at this competition, and they’ll gladly enter as underdogs. On the other hand, Nigeria will be wary of the threat the Angolans pose, so we expect a tight, cautious encounter. With that in mind, we expect a low scoring game. Our prediction for Nigeria v Angola is for the match to have under 2.5 goals.