Africa Cup of Nations Group A Preview and Predictions

Striker Siyabonga Sangweni celebrates his goal during South Africa's 2-0 victory over Angola. (kickoff.com)

The group stage of the African Cup of Nations is beginning to come a close. Final match days will decide which two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage. Group A is the first group to have its final match day. That day is Sunday, January 27.

Before I preview the two matches, let's look at the all important group table and the possible advancement scenarios that come as a result.

(Graphic credit: ESPN.com)

South Africa will advance if:

• They win or draw against Morocco
• Cape Verde does not defeat Angola.

Cape Verde will advance if:

• They defeat Angola
• They draw with Angola and South Africa defeats Morocco
• South Africa draw with Morocco and Cape Verde outscores Morocco

Morocco will advance if:

• They defeat South Africa
• They draw with South Africa and Cape Verde draws with Angola
• Morocco outscores Cape Verde

Angola will advance if:

• They defeat Cape Verde and South Africa defeats Morocco

Now that we have that mostly straightened out, we can focus on previewing this group's two final matches.

Angola vs. Cape Verde - 12:00 PM EST, ESPN3

In their opening game Angola played to draw with Morocco. Angola then got dominated by South Africa in a 2-0 loss. Cape Verde has drawn twice so far. The first was a scoreless one with South Africa. They played Morocco to a 1-1 draw in their second game. Angola has yet to score in the year's tournament, but Manucho Goncalves is their main threat to do so. Luis Carlos Platini has Cape Verde's only goal thus far. Angola needs to win this have any chance of advancing. The problem with that is that it plays exactly into Cape Verde's plans.

Prediction: Cape Verde 1 Angola 0

South Africa vs. Morocco - 12:00 PM EST, ESPN3 

As the tournament hosts, South Africa is playing under high expectations. Their fans were not too pleased with a 0-0 draw to Cape Verde in their opening match. South Africa though appeased them in the next game by scoring two goals in the group's only victory so far. Siyabonga Sangweni got them on the board first and Micheal Majoro added the second in the 62nd minute. In Morocco's opening game against Angola, neither team could find a way to score that ended in a 0-0 draw. They trailed Cape Verde 1-0 in their second game. Youssef El Arabi delievered the equalizer in the 78th minute to earn Morocco its second draw of tournament. All that South Africa needs is a draw to be certain that they will advance. I think they will back more defensively and hold off Morocco to pick up their result.

Prediction: South Africa 1 Morocco 1

Overall Prediction: South Africa (Group A winner) and Cape Verde (Group A runner-up) advance