{"id":8470,"date":"2026-01-07T03:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T03:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/8470\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T03:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T03:32:10","slug":"africa-cup-of-nations-bracket-2026-and-full-afcon-knockout-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/8470\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa Cup of Nations bracket 2026 and full AFCON knockout schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:USA TODAY Sports;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/sports\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"USA TODAY Sports\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"174\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/092f7540-26ea-11eb-bdb4-b7283677d9f5.png\"\/><\/a>Updated Tue, January 6, 2026 at 9:15 PM UTC<img alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"w-full h-full object-cover\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767756730_174_image.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The 2025-26 Africa Cup of Nations is into the knockout stage with the quarterfinals getting underway on Friday, Jan. 9 for the tournament being hosted by Morocco.<\/p>\n<p>Mali, Senegal, Egypt, Cameroon, Morocco and Nigeria were the first teams to book their places in the top eight, with the final Round of 16 matches taking place on Tuesday, Jan. 6. Ivory Coast is the reining AFCON champion, defeating Nigeria in the final two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>This year&#8217;s final is set for Sunday, Jan. 8 in Rabat and host Morocco is one of the tournament&#8217;s favorites, fighting to win Africa&#8217;s continental crown for the second time in history, the first coming back in 1978.<\/p>\n<p>1 \/ 0<\/p>\n<p>2026 World Cup: 20 players who will get you out of your seat<\/p>\n<p>SPAIN: Lamine Yamal. Still just a teenager, few players are as exciting with the ball at their feet as the 18-year-old Barcelona winger. He already has 23 caps for Spain, bursting onto the scene as 16-year-old sensation.<\/p>\n<p>Africa Cup of Nations bracketQuarterfinals<\/p>\n<p>Jan. 9<\/p>\n<p>(All times Eastern)<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mali vs. Senegal \u2013 11 a.m. in Tanger<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cameroon vs. Morocco \u2013 2 p.m. in Rafat<\/p>\n<p>Jan. 10<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Algeria vs. Nigeria \u2013 11 a.m. in Marrakech<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Egypt vs. Ivory Coast \u2013 2 p.m. in Agadir<\/p>\n<p>Semifinals<\/p>\n<p>Jan. 14<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Mali\/Senegal vs. Egypt\/Ivory Coast \u2013 12 p.m. in Tanger<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Cameroon\/Morocco vs. Nigeria\/Algeria \u2013 3 p.m. in Rabat<\/p>\n<p>Third-place match<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Jan. 17: Semifinal losers in Casablanca, 11 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>AFCON final<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Jan. 18: 2 p.m. at Stade Prince Moulay Abdallah in Rabat<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/soccer\/2026\/01\/06\/afcon-bracket-2026-schedule-knockout\/88045668007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:AFCON bracket 2026, knockout stage schedule for Africa Cup of Nations;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link rapid-noclick-resp\">AFCON bracket 2026, knockout stage schedule for Africa Cup of Nations<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated Tue, January 6, 2026 at 9:15 PM UTC The 2025-26 Africa Cup of Nations is into the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[5866,63,146,143,1982,5332,165,122,159],"class_list":{"0":"post-8470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"tag-afcon-final","9":"tag-africa","10":"tag-africa-cup-of-nations","11":"tag-cameroon","12":"tag-egypt","13":"tag-ivory-coast","14":"tag-morocco","15":"tag-nigeria","16":"tag-senegal"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}