In search of their first win in Group I of the World Cup 2022 qualifiers, Sudan and Guinea face off at the Stade de Marrakech on Wednesday.
The hosts failed to pick up a point from their first two games, while the visitors will be keen to bounce back from a relatively disappointing opening-day draw with Guinea-Bissau.
Match preview
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Sudan kicked off their quest for a maiden World Cup appearance on a good note as they eased past Chad in the first round of qualifiers courtesy of a 3-1 aggregate victory.
However, they were sent crashing back to earth in their Group I curtain-raiser when they suffered a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Morocco on September 2.
After falling behind inside the first 10 minutes to Nayef Aguerd's opener, Abuaagla Abdalla scored a 54th-minute own goal as the Atlas Lions cruised to all three points.
Sudan's hopes of making it to the final qualifying round took a huge blow in their subsequent outing as they were beaten 4-2 by Guinea-Bissau on home turf five days later.
Hubert Velud's men, who now find themselves rooted to the bottom of the group after two games, are on a run of three straight defeats and have lost four of their last five matches in all competitions, with June's 1-0 win over Libya in the Arab Cup qualifiers being the only exception.
Guinea, on the other hand, were denied a third consecutive win when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Guinea-Bissau in their group opener on September 1.
After heading into the break with a one-goal lead through Francois Kamano's 15th-minute strike, Joseph Mendes restored parity in the 46th minute to force a share of the spoils.
Prior to that, Didier Six's side claimed a 2-1 friendly victory over Kosovo on June 8 to end their three-game winless run before seeing off Niger by the same scoreline three days later.
While the Syli Nationale will feel somewhat disappointed by their draw against Guinea-Bissau, they will fancy their chances against an out-of-sorts Sudan side who have shipped six goals in their first two games.
However, their Northeastern African counterparts claimed a 2-1 win in their last encounter, when Omer Dafalla and Saif Tere scored either side of Sekou Amadou Camara's 55th-minute leveller in the African Nations Championship back in 2018.
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Team News
Veteran forward Ramadan Kreen Alagab came off 18 minutes into the game against Guinea-Bissau last time out and the 35-year-old could be dropped to the bench on Wednesday.
In his absence, 21-year-old forward Ahmed Ibrahim Elnour could deputise on the left flank, having sat out the aforementioned game.
With his goals against the Djurtus, Mohamed Abdelrahman has now scored in each of his last five outings for Sudan and the Al-Hilal Omdurman forward will be one to place an eye on.
Meanwhile, Guinea head into the game with a healthy 25-man squad, including the likes of Florentin Pogba, Napoli midfielder Amadou Diawara and Liverpool's Naby Keita.
Following his side's solid defensive display last time out, Six could name an unchanged defensive unit on Wednesday, meaning we could see Issiaga Sylla, Florentin Pogba, Mohamed Camara and Abdoulaye Cisse start for the second game running.
Sudan possible starting lineup:
Abu-Eshrein; Ahmed, Suliman, Merghani, Abdalla; Musa, Omar, Mahjoub; Yasin Hamed, Abdelrahman, Elnour
Guinea possible starting lineup:
Keita; Cisse, Camara, Pogba, Sylla; Camara, Diawara, Kane; Keita; Kamano, Mohamed Kayoute
We say: Sudan 1-2 Guinea
Sudan have endured an underwhelming start to their quest for a World Cup ticket and will head into this game keen to pick up a morale-boosting win and get their campaign back on track.
However, they face a superior Guinea side who are currently 51 places above them in the FIFA World Rankings, and we predict the visitors will bounce back from their opening-day draw and pick up their first win in Group I.
Top tip
Joshua Ojele
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Guinea win with a probability of 40.03%. A win for Sudan had a probability of 30.26% and a draw had a probability of 29.7%.
The most likely scoreline for a Guinea win was 0-1 with a probability of 13.96%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-2 (8.03%) and 1-2 (7.69%). The likeliest Sudan win was 1-0 (11.64%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (13.38%). The actual scoreline of 1-1 was predicted with a 13.4% likelihood.
