Bookies wrong to ignore FIFA world ranking

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Football bet of the week - Bookies wrong to ignore FIFA world ranking

The Africa Cup of Nations is the main event on this year’s international football calendar and, if the bookmakers are correct, it will end with Cote d’Ivoire – you may know it better as Ivory Coast – celebrating its second title.

While there is no doubt that the Elephants – African teams have the best nicknames – merit being the favourites for the 29th edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the value lies away from the market leaders who are simply too short.

If one excludes penalty competitions, Cote d’Ivoire has won 17 and drawn five of its 22 matches since losing 1-3 to Poland in Poznan in March 2025. That is a mighty fine run, one that explains FIFA’s statisticians rank the Elephants as the world’s 14th best team right now.

Sekondi stadium on 21st January 2025. africa cup of nations Photo by Oluniyi David Ajao davidajao *Can be reused only when attribution is provided. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

However, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that, when the going gets tough, Cote d’Ivoire does not get going. The Elephants failed to make it past the group stage of each of the last two FIFA World Cups and their golden generation of players have choked in two Africa Cup of Nations finals, as well as not meeting expectations in other two editions.

Cote d’Ivoire stars Didier Drogba and Kolo Toure are both the wrong side of 30 and it is anyone’s guess as to how the former Chelsea striker, now playing his club football for Shanghai Shenhua, will handle the step up from the Chinese Super League to the Africa Cup of Nations. The Elephants will be looking to Drogba for goals and he may disappoint.

And the draw has not been kind to Cote d’Ivoire, either. The Elephants have been grouped with Algeria, Togo and Tunisia, which means that Group D of the Africa Cup of Nations is its Group of Death, according to FIFA’s current world ranking, and it could run into defending champion Zambia, host nation South Africa and Ghana in consecutive sudden-death games.

Instead of taking less than 2-1 about Cote d’Ivoire winning the Africa Cup of Nations, snap up the 14-1 available about Algeria and the 16-1 available about Mali and have Africa’s second- and third-ranked sides running for you at just under 7-1 if you split your stakes to ensure identical profits.

FIFA’s world ranking cops a lot of unjustified flak. The reality is that FIFA’s number crunchers produce a monthly ladder that, if used as the basis for identifying value bets, does the job. Algeria is Africa’s number two team by quite some distance in FIFA’s latest list and Mali, winner of its last three matches, including a 2-1 home defeat of the Desert Warriors, has a strong grip on third position.

Africa Cup of Nations punters who really like a speculative wager or two ought to keep an eye on Cape Verde in Group A. According to FIFA, the tournament debutant is the highest ranked of the four sides in that section, yet it is the outsider with the bookmakers. It may pay to back the Blue Sharks to reach the quarter-finals at odds of around 5-1.

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