Mohamed Salah, Brahim Diaz, Victor Osimhen and others can be thanked. A few days before the end, before the small final (Saturday, 5 p.m.) and the final (Sunday, 8 p.m.), the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced this Friday that the record for goals in an African Cup of Nations had been broken. Thanks to Sadio Mané’s goal against Egypt in the semi-final, CAN 2025 now has 120 goals in 49 matches, with an average of 2.45 goals per match.
An already historic figure which exceeds by one the previous record of 119 goals, established during the last edition of the competition in Ivory Coast and which “underlines the offensive intention, the technical quality and the growing confidence of the teams across the continent”, we can read on the CAF website.
117 goals during Euro 2024
“More than a simple statistic, the milestone of 120 goals testifies to a more profound evolution in African football. Players are more tactically versatile, better physically prepared and more confident in their technique, while teams are increasingly inclined to play attack,” the body continues in its press release.
During the first competition after the expansion of the tournament from 12 to 24 teams, in 2019 in Egypt, African attacks shook the nets 102 times. Note that even Euro 2024, which is played with 24 teams like the African continental tournament, did not resemble such a number of achievements. European teams had scored 117 goals in 51 matches. Senegal, Morocco, Nigeria and Egypt will now have the opportunity to further add to that record this weekend.
