2004 African Cup of Nations

The 2004 African Cup of Nations was held from 24 January to 14 February 2004 in Tunisia. It was the 24th edition of the biennial international men's football championship of Africa, organized by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Tunisia hosted the tournament for the third time, having previously done so in 1965 and 1994.

2004 African Cup of Nations
كأس الأمم الإفريقية 2004 Coupe d'Afrique des Nations 2004

Tournament details
Host country	Tunisia
Dates	24 January – 14 February
Teams	16
Venue	6 (in 5 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	Tunisia (1st title)
Runners-up	Morocco
Third place	Nigeria
Fourth place	Mali
Tournament statistics
Matches played	32
Goals scored	88 (2.75 per match)
Attendance	617,500 (19,297 per match)
Top scorers	Patrick Mboma Frédéric Kanouté Jay-Jay Okocha Francileudo Santos (4 goals each)
Best player	Jay-Jay Okocha
← 2002 2006 →

Tunisia won the title for the first time in its history, defeating Morocco 2–1 in the final. Nigeria secured third place with a 2–1 victory over Mali in the third-place match. Cameroon, the defending champions from the 2002 edition, were eliminated in the quarter-finals after a 2–1 loss to Nigeria.

A total of 32 matches were played, with 88 goals scored — an average of 2.75 goals per match. The tournament attracted a total attendance of 617,500, averaging 19,297 spectators per match. As in the 2002 edition, sixteen teams competed, beginning with a group stage of four groups of four teams each, followed by knockout rounds (quarter-finals, semi-finals, and final). Cameroon, as the title holder, and Tunisia, as the host nation, automatically qualified. The remaining fourteen teams secured their spots through a qualification phase held from 7 September 2002 to 6 July 2003. The tournament was hosted by Nokia.

The tournament's top scorers were Tunisia's Francileudo Santos, Cameroon's Patrick Mboma, Mali's Frédéric Kanouté, and Nigeria's Jay-Jay Okocha. Santos received the Golden Boot, as he played for the championship-winning team and did not receive any cards during the tournament.^{[citation needed]} Okocha was named the Player of the Tournament. As champions, Tunisia qualified for the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup in Germany as Africa's representative.

Host selection

Bids :

Benin / Togo
Malawi / Zambia
Tunisia (selected as hosts)
Zimbabwe

The right to host the 2004 edition was awarded to Tunisia on 4 September 2000 during a CAF Executive Committee meeting in Cairo, Egypt Four bids were submitted: Tunisia; Zimbabwe; a joint bid by Malawi and Zambia; and another joint bid by Benin and Togo, which was withdrawn on the day of the CAF meeting. This marked the third time Tunisia hosted the tournament, after previously organizing it in 1965 and 1994. Two years prior to the competition, an organizing committee (Comité d'organisation de la Coupe d'Afrique des Nations, or COCAN) was formed, chaired by Slim Chiboub, who had also led the organizing committee in 1994..

**Voting results**
Country	Votes
Tunisia	9
Zimbabwe	3
Malawi / Zambia	1
Benin / Togo	Withdrew
Total votes	13

Venues

Tunis		Sousse
Stade 7 November	Stade El Menzah	Stade Olympique de Sousse
Capacity: 60,000	Capacity: 45,000	Capacity: 28,000

Monastir	Sfax	Bizerte
Stade Mustapha Ben Jannet	Stade Taïeb Mhiri	Stade 15 Octobre
Capacity: 22,000	Capacity: 22,000	Capacity: 20,000

Qualification

Qualification for the tournament took place from 7 September 2002 to 6 July 2003. A total of 49 nations registered for the competition and were initially divided into 13 groups: 10 groups of four teams and 3 groups of three teams. However, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Príncipe and Djibouti withdrew their participation before the start of qualifying, so the 13 groups involved 7 four-team groups and 6 three-team groups.

The winner of each group qualified for the final tournament in Tunisia, as well as the best of the second. Cameroon, as defending champion, and Tunisia, as host country, automatically qualified for the final phase of the competition. Benin, Rwanda and Zimbabwe managed to qualify for the first time, with Benin and Rwanda finishing top of their groups in the qualifiers in front of two former African champions, Sudan and Ghana. Zimbabwe qualified as the best runner-up.

Qualified teams

The following sixteen teams qualified for the tournament. Cameroon were the highest-ranked team under the January 2004 FIFA World Rankings (14th), while hosts Tunisia were ranked 45th.

Team	Method of qualification	Finals appearance	Last appearance	Previous best performance	FIFA ranking at start of event
Tunisia	Hosts	11th	2002	Runners-up (1965, 1996)	45
Cameroon	Holders	13th	2002	Winners (1984, 1988, 2000, 2002)	14
Nigeria	Group 1 winners	13th	2002	Winners (1980, 1994)	35
Guinea	Group 2 winners	7th	1998	Runners-up (1976)	102
Benin	Group 3 winners	1st	None	Debut	123
Burkina Faso	Group 4 winners	6th	2002	Fourth place (1998)	72
Kenya	Group 5 winners	5th	1992	Group stage (1972, 1988, 1990, 1992)	76
Mali	Group 6 winners	4th	2002	Runners-up (1972)	51
Morocco	Group 7 winners	12th	2002	Winners (1976)	38
Senegal	Group 8 winners	9th	2002	Runners-up (2002)	33
DR Congo	Group 9 winners	14th	2002	Winners (1968, 1974)	54
Egypt	Group 10 winners	19th	2002	Winners (1957, 1959, 1986, 1998)	32
South Africa	Group 11 winners	5th	2002	Winners (1996)	36
Algeria	Group 12 winners	13th	2002	Winners (1990)	63
Rwanda	Group 13 winners	1st	None	Debut	109
Zimbabwe	Group 6 runner-up	1st	None	Debut	49

Final draw

The draw took place on 20 September 2003 in Tunis. The sixteen teams were divided into four pots according to their performances in past Cup of Nations tournaments.

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
Tunisia (hosts) Cameroon (title holders) Nigeria Senegal	Mali South Africa Egypt DR Congo	Morocco Burkina Faso Algeria Guinea	Kenya Rwanda Benin Zimbabwe

Squads

Marketing

Sponsorship

On 20 September 2003, in Tunis, Nokia acquired from CAF the right to be the "title sponsor" of the 24th edition, and hence the tournament was referred to as the Nokia Africa Cup of Nations, Tunisia 2004.

Sponsors list

Title sponsor

Official sponsors

Regional sponsors

Nokia

Toyota
Pepsi
Henkel

Western Union
The Laughing Cow
Glo

Tunisie Telecom
Tunisair

AGIL
Délice Danone

Broadcasting

Territory	Channel
Tunisia	Tunis 7
France	Canal+
MENA	ART
Sub-Saharan Africa	LC 2 AFNEX

Symbols

Mascot

The organizing committee ran a competition to design a mascot for the tournament. The chosen mascot was an eagle named Nçayir, wearing a red and white jersey, in reference to the colors of the Tunisian flag.

I sent my proposal by post without even giving my phone number. I just wanted to participate. One day, someone knocked on the door. To my great surprise, I learned that my mascot proposal had won the contest ! I then had to change a few details requested by the organizing committee.

— Malek Khalfallah (mascot designer)

Match ball

The official ball for the 2004 African Cup of Nations was the Adidas Fevernova. Designed two years earlier by Adidas for the 2002 FIFA World Cup held in South Korea and Japan, and the 2003 FIFA Women's World Cup held in the United States. The ball was reused during the 2004 African Cup of Nations.

Match officials

The following referees were chosen for the 2004 Africa Cup of Nations.

Referees

Divine Evehe
Abubakar Sharaf
Jerome Damon
Modou Sowe
Tessama Hailemalek
Falla N'Doye
Mohamed Guezzaz
Abdul Hakim Shelmani
Essam Abdel-Fatah
Lassina Paré
Coffi Codjia
Alain Hamer
Eddy Maillet
Koman Coulibaly
Ali Bujsaim
Hichem Guirat

Matches

The 16 national teams participating in the tournament together played a total of 32 matches ranging from group stage and progression matches to knockout matches, with teams eliminated through the various progressive stages.

Group stage

Teams highlighted in green progress to the quarter-finals.

All times local: CET (UTC+1)

Tiebreakers

Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 74):

Points in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goal difference in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
Goals scored in head-to-head matches among tied teams;
If more than two teams were tied, and after applying all head-to-head criteria above, a subset of teams were still tied, all head-to-head criteria above were reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams;
Goal difference in all group matches;
Goals scored in all group matches;
Drawing of lots.

Group A

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Tunisia (H)	3	2	1	0	6	2	+4	7	Advance to knockout stage
2	Guinea	3	1	2	0	4	3	+1	5	Advance to knockout stage
3	Rwanda	3	1	1	1	3	3	0	4
4	DR Congo	3	0	0	3	1	6	−5	0

Source: Soccerway
(H) Hosts

24 January 2004