Egypt vs Nigeria Prediction: Value pick for low-scoring affair

The game nobody really wants to play takes place on Saturday afternoon as Egypt face Nigeria in Afcon’s third-place play-off match (16:00 GMT, live on E4). 

These two meet in Casablanca and below you can find my Egypt vs Nigeria predictions, featuring team news and more. 

Team News

Egypt’s Hossam Abdelmaguid won’t feature in this one given he is suspended due to an accumulation of yellow cards, while Mohamed Hamdy is out for an extended period after picking up a knee injury.

Given the state of this game, we may see Mohamed Salah left out having scored four goals, with Omar Marmoush, Trezeguet and Mostafa Mohamed an alternative front three in the final third. 

For Nigeria, centre-back Calvin Bassey is suspended, but Wilfred Ndidi returns from suspension having missed the semi-final defeat to hosts Morocco. 

Victor Osimhen is also expected to miss this one after Eric Chelle revealed the forward has had an ankle injury, so Ademola Lookman may play behind a front two of Akor Adams and Paul Onuachu.

Football Odds

Egypt vs Nigeria Odds

Egypt are the outsiders for this one at 13/5, while the 11/10 on favourites Nigeria gives them an implied win probability of 48%. A draw after 90 minutes is 9/4, over 2.5 goals is 11/10 and BTTS is 4/5.

Osimhen and Salah lead the way in terms of goalscorers but with both unlikely to play, Onuachu looks to be the best price at 4/1.

Under 1.5 goals @ 21/10

Both of these teams were utterly dismal in front of goal in their respective semi-finals and I don’t see that improving here with the big names likely to miss out. Egypt mustered just one shot on target against Senegal, creating an xG of 0.12 - while their opponents only created an xG of 0.33 in a dour semi-final.

Nigeria didn’t fare much better against Morocco as they also only had one shot on target, creating an xG of 0.08 - which is simply dreadful. They had looked reasonably good going forward prior to that but I just cannot see this one being an entertaining game. One goal should decide it. 

Nigeria to win the tie @ 4/7

I don’t think there will be much in this, but if I had to side with one of these nations, it would be Nigeria. They had won five in a row in this competition and looked like the team to beat after the group stage. Remember, they still haven’t lost a game in 90 minutes at Afcon having only lost on penalties to Morocco and that gives me strong belief that they will be able to see off an Egypt outfit that were seriously underwhelming in their semi. 

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