Our good friends at Opta have complied all the numbers and stats you need to assess the teams’ chances ahead of today’s Afcon Group A clash at Stade d'Angondje.
- This is Gabon’s seventh participation in the African Cup of Nations; they have never gone further than the quarter-finals (1996, 2012).
- It’s also the second time they’ve hosted the tournament after 2012 when they were co-hosts alongside Equatorial Guinea. Gabon were unbeaten on home soil (W3 D1), going out on penalties against Mali in the quarter-finals.
- Meanwhile, this is Burkina Faso’s 11th participation in the African Cup of Nations; their best performance was in 2013 when they were beaten finalists against Nigeria (0-1).
- Gabon beat Burkina Faso in their only previous AFCON encounter. It was in the 2015 group stages (2-0).
- Burkina Faso manager Paulo Duarte is taking charge of Burkina Faso at a third AFCON after 2010 and 2012. He’s yet to win any of his six games at the tournament with the Stallions (D2 L4).
- Burkina Faso come into this game having won only one of their last 21 matches in this competition during the group stages (D8 L12).
- Gabon have failed to win any of their last three matches in the African Cup of Nations (D1 L2); scoring only one goal in that time whilst four of the last six goals they have conceded in the competition have come in the 84th minute or later (including Juary Soares’s 90th minute effort for Guinea-Bissau).
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has been directly involved in eight of the last 11 AFCON goals recorded by Gabon (scoring five and assisting three).
- Aubameyang scored one of the two Gabon goals when his country previously met Burkina Faso in the 2015 edition of this competition; Malick Evouna was the other player to get on the scoresheet that day.
- Burkina Faso’s Alain Traoré created five chances for his teammates during their match against Cameroon last time out; no Gabon player recorded more than two versus Guinea Bissau.
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