Nigeria vs Angola LIVE: Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final team news, line-ups and more tonight

Rewind to the mid- and late-1990s and there was just one African nation widely expected to become the big challenger to European and South American countries on the international football landscape: Nigeria.

The Super Eagles reached the last 16 in both ‘94 and ‘98, the iconic team of Jay-Jay Okocha, Sunday Oliseh, Finidi George and Daniel Amokachi, later added to by Nwankwo Kanu, Taribo West and Celestine Babayaro. With a significant section of the latter squad aged 24 and under, it seemed they should only go from strength to strength, particularly after winning the Africa Cup of Nations in ‘94 as well.

It didn’t quite happen that way.

Nigeria withdrew from the following Afcon after Sani Abacha’s coup d’etat, then were banned from the ‘98 edition as a consequence. It was 19 years until they won their next (and so far last) Afcon and – more notably perhaps – it is now a full quarter of a century since France ‘98, during which time they have won matches on just two further occasions at World Cup finals.

An entire generation of supporters, of citizens and indeed of playing talent have grown up since that early promise and had to watch on as Nigeria squander chances or fall short – but perhaps this time around the stars have aligned for the modern Super Eagles to reach their potential and fly to glory in Ivory Coast.

Karl Matchett on Nigeria’s unexpected chance to end generation of missed opportunities:

The quarter-final line-up is: Nigeria v Angola, DR Congo v Guinea, Mali v Ivory Coast, Cape Verde v South Africa.

The tournament is officially Afcon 2023, despite taking place in 2024, after it was pushed back several months due to concerns over the Senegalese heat in the summer months.

Here is the full schedule of fixtures, dates and kick-off times.

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Good afternoon and welcome to the Independent’s live coverage of the Africa Cup of Nations, where today we have Nigeria facing Angola in the quarter-finals.

We’ll have all the team news and build-up right here, with kick-off set for 5pm GMT.