The Africa Cup of Nations begins in Ivory Coast on Saturday, with Mohamed Salah, Victor Osimhen and Sadio Mane amongst the most established stars to be present.
Instead, we pick eight players aged 23 and under from outside Europe’s elite clubs who may well make a name for themselves over the next month…
Mohamed Amoura (Algeria – Union Saint-Gilloise)
One of the oldest entrants on this list, but then Algeria’s squad is so weighted towards senior players (seven aged 32 or over), that Amoura and Fares Chaibi have the chance to be breakout stars at Afcon.
Amoura, 23, is a striker who broke through comparatively late at Entente de Setif in Algeria and then moved to FC Lugano in Switzerland in 2021.
Joining Union Saint-Gilloise in the summer rather than taking a larger step up, it’s paying off pretty well: Amoura has scored 13 goals despite starting only nine league games.
Amoura was Algeria’s top scorer in qualifying and will lead the line when available, but must serve a one-match suspension. Expect him to be ready to hit the ground running and take over from the warhorse Islam Slimani.
Ousmane Diomande (Ivory Coast – Sporting CP)
The hosts have a genuine shot at winning this competition, with a testing group-stage draw that might well set them up for knockout football. Serge Aurier, Willy Boly and Sebastien Haller provide the experience (although Haller only made his international debut in 2020), but it’s the young players around them that make this squad so exciting.
Simon Adingra and Karim Konate coud both have been picked here, but instead it’s a central defender who is making big clubs flutter their eyelashes in Sporting’s direction. Dimoande is only 20, came through Danish football and signed a deal with Sporting that contains an €80m (£69m) release clause. If he starts (he only made his debut last September), expect those Premier League transfer rumours to fire up again.
Bilal El Khannouss (Morocco – Genk)
The temptation may well be for Walid Regragui to stick with the team that became the first from its continent to reach the World Cup semi-final, but Bilal El Khannous was part of that squad as an 18-year-old and may now be ready to offer some freshness – Amir Richardson and Azzedine Ounahi will do the same.
Although he was born in Belgium and played for them at youth level, El Khannouss switched to Morocco at U20 level and has now broken into the senior team after being part of the team that won the U23 Afcon and being nominated for the African Young Player of the Year.
El Khannous is an attacking midfielder who looks to play quick passes to link midfield and attack, but it’s his passing range and vision that excites Regragui most.
Expect him to start on the bench, but push for more minutes if he impresses.
Salis Abdul Samed (Ghana – Lens)
No Thomas Partey means that Chris Hughton needs a reliable central midfielder with positional discipline who can allow an exciting attack (Mohammed Kudus, Antoine Semenyo, Inaki Williams, Ernest Nuameh and the Ayews) to thrive. Abdul Samed may well be the guy.
Originally moving to France to play for Clermont in Ligue 2, Abdul Samed joined Lens for €5m (£4.3m) in June 2022 and started 33 games as they finished only a point behind Paris Saint-Germain in the title race. This season, he started all six of Lens’ Champions League games. Abdul Samed is unfussy, unflustered and understanding of his role at international level.
Lamine Camara (Senegal – Metz)
Senegal are the reigning champions and all the big guns are here from their various half-paced matches in Saudi Arabia – Kalidou Koulibaly, Sadio Mane, Edouard Mendy. It will be interesting to see if the Saudi Pro League has left them rusty or raring for high-level competitive football.
Lamine Camara is the youngest in the squad by 16 months, an attacking midfielder who only joined Metz from Generation Foot academy last February.
He is an excellent box-to-box midfielder, brilliant off the ball and who can take a mean free-kick. If he’s still at Metz at the end of 2024, something has gone badly wrong. The only question is whether Senegal boss Aliou Cisse would play Camara (20) and Pape Matar Sarr (21) together, or prefer some experience (Idriss Gueye, Cheikhou Kouyate).
Yankuba Minteh (Gambia – Newcastle United)
Minteh is a slight cheat answer here because he’s already owned by the club with the richest owners in world football, but he’s also yet to play for Newcastle United having joined Feyenoord on loan immediately after signing from Danish club OB for around £6m last summer.
A muscle injury curtailed Minteh’s progress in the autumn, but at 19, and with only six Eredivisie starts, he has provided five league goals and assists and scored as a substitute away at Celtic in the Champions League in December.
He will start on the right wing for Gambia and may well be their best hope of sneaking third-place qualification behind Senegal and Cameroon.
Raphael Onyedika (Nigeria – Club Brugge)
Onyedika was reportedly on Milan’s radar when breaking through at FC Midtjylland in Denmark, but instead made the move to Club Brugge and a league where he would start every week and flourish. He’s a defensive midfielder who likes a tackle and shifting possession quickly to spark attacks.
Nigeria’s midfield has more experienced players than him (Alex Iwobi, Joe Aribo, Frank Onyeka), but with Wilfred Ndidi pulling out through injury and supporters worried about the Super Eagles looking stale in recent months and with a reasonable ceiling of a quarter-final place, why not pick the young talent and try to earn some goodwill?
Lameck Banda (Zambia – Lecce)
At the age of 22, Banda has had a circuitous route to the top. He left Zambia for Russian club Arsenal Tula in 2019 when just 18, and was loaned to two different Israeli clubs before joining Lecce after their promotion to Serie A in 2022. Since then, he’s not really looked back.
Banda is still raw and there are slight concerns about his end product (at least until this season) and the number of fouls he commits, but he’s also an exciting, dribbling, fast left-winger who has scored or assisted league goals this season against Milan, Roma and Fiorentina and is the first Zambian ever to feature in Serie A. If Zambia are to succeed at Afcon, Banda will be vital on the counter attack.
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