Senegal and Egypt will bring the curtain down on the 2021 Afcon with a clash of titans in tonight’s final. The game will provide the last impressions of a tournament that will always be associated with the Olembe Stadium tragedy, and CAF will be hoping the final can wash away some of the stain. But what can Africa expect from this meeting of the record seven-time Afcon winners and Africa’s top-seeded team? New Vision Sports interviewed Nick Cavell, a sports journalist covering the Cup of Nations for BCC Sport Africa, for insights about this and more, and started by posing the $5m question.

Who will win the final?

 Predictions in football are always a dangerous business. They always make the person making them or can make them look a bit silly. So it's always a difficult thing and I think these two teams are very evenly-matched in a lot of different ways. I think Senegal have got a better team individually with a lot more skillful players and can create some magic as we've seen in a couple of their matches, although they didn't play well earlier in the tournament. Their semifinal against Burkina Faso was excellent. Egypt on the other hand, haven't played any really nice football, but they play to a way of disrupting the opposition and always seem to do just enough to be able to get past teams as they did against Cameroon in the semifinal on penalties. Carlos Queirroz, the former Manchester United assistant coach, seems to have a way of knowing what tactics are needed; whether they are footballing tactics or slightly other tactics of disrupting the game by people being injured and things like that, that it seemed to work for them. If he's not on the bench on Sunday, which it looks like he won't be because he got his red card in the semifinal, that may have an impact as well. So on balance with those things, I'm favoring Senegal slightly to go ahead and lift the first Afcon title. I think they will have learned from 2019 as well with Aliou Cisse in charge. He knows how to get this team going and with the likes of Sadio Mane, Idrissa Gueye, Kalidou Koulibaly and Edouard Mendi they seem to have the core of a very, very good team

The final has been billed as a Sadio Mane - Mohammed Salah affair. Do you think it will come down to who of those two Liverpool team-mates has the better final?

Yes, I think it is very much a Salah v Mane final, isn't it? I think it doesn't matter where you are in the world; I know in the UK, it will be seen like that and I think around Europe it'll be seen like that because those are the names that people know. They are now the two leading lights in African football, so again for African fans it will be that thing of who was better – Salah or Mane? And definitely they will be the key to their team’s success or failure. The key, though, is not them scoring goals. That could come down to that but that is not the main thing. It is about how they can lead their team, it is about how they can inspire their team. It's about what they can do to get their teammates around them playing well. And then in those moments, those individual bits of brilliance that we know that both of those men have, whether one of them can produce that moment, that will change a game. So they will be very, very key but it may not be down to one moment of brilliance. It may be more about how they drag people away from other players to free up other players to do things. I don't think there's any avoiding that. And especially Mohamed salah, because he will be a marked man by Senegal. But it's so difficult to say who's gonna come out on top. They're both brilliant players.

Egypt looked iffy at the start of the tournament, losing 1-0 to Nigeria. Are you surprised they have turned it around and what do you attribute the turnaround to?

Yes, I'm a bit surprised with Egypt after that first game. I think that they obviously fought back from that. The turnaround I think is the way Carlos Queirroz gets that team playing. It's very difficult to put your finger on it. They've managed to do just enough to get those wins. You know, against Cameroon, Cameroon, we're doing exceptionally well in that semifinal and then suddenly, the tackles went in a little bit harder, there were a few more injuries that meant people were down for a bit longer. And that completely disrupted the rhythm of Cameroon. So sometimes it's a little bit more to do with what they're doing off the ball and away from the ball that has helped Egypt turn it around . They are very, very good at what you call game management; they know how to try and snuff out any problems. They've looked very solid at the back; they're down to their second or third goalkeeper with Mohamed El Shenawy still injured; he may come back for the final; he is still here with the team. But they've seemed to manage with their reserve goalkeeper Gabaski, who's done exceptionally well. So I think that turnaround is down to Carlos Queirroz, his years and years of experience coaching all over the world. Real Madrid, Manchester United South Africa, Iran, he's coached in so many different areas that he knows how to get the best out of people.

Senegal started the tournament as the top seeds. And have lived up to their reputation. Do you think they have to win the final or the tournament will go down as a failure back in Dakar?

Yes, Senegal certainly started as the number one ranked team in Africa. They've been there for three years, I think, on the FIFA rankings. There were very high expectations when they came into this tournament. The fact that they scraped through the group stages with a single goal tells us that they knew what they had to do. And I think people have just been expecting them to play much, much better than that and to play a lot more fluid football, and I think that has come slowly but surely, especially against Burkina Faso. I think that was probably one of their better games. And I think they've got a bit of strength and depth on the bench as well. So it's going to be a fascinating final to see whether Senegal will be allowed to play their natural game. But I think they're probably in a better position to win this time than they were in 2019. I think Algeria in that tournament were far too strong, but in this tournament, I would say that Senegal are probably looking slightly better than Egypt.

Do you see CAF honouring Egypt's request to push back the final by a day because Senegal has apparently had more rest, which would technically remain the case no matter CAF decides?

I cannot see CAF honouring the change of time for the final. We all knew what date it was. We all knew the route that teams would take, so it's too late to do that. There's millions and millions of pounds and dollars being spent on broadcast time, satellite time, technicians, everything that's in place here in Cameroon that will need to be getting packed up and ready to go on Monday and Tuesday. So to delay the final by 24 hours, the amount of money involved I think would be far too great. Maybe CAF in the future will think about having the semi-finals on the same day again but in this case I can’t see Egypt being successful with this plea to have the final changed to another date.

How do you think the 2022 Afcon will be remembered?

Afcon 2021 unfortunately will be remembered for that tragic moment outside Olembe Stadium, where eight people lost their lives, including an eight-year-old-boy and a 14-year-old-boy. So that kind of is the image that unfortunately people will have in their memory. I think it's unfortunate but that's kind of what will stick in the mind, much like when we talk about Angola 2010.

What sticks in the mind unfortunately is the attack on the Togo buses. If I put that to one side, football-wise what I will remember the most is the smaller teams doing well at this tournament. The Comoros and the Gambia and Equatorial Guinea are the three that really spring to mind. Malawi played excellently as well. Now it's not just that they did well here I felt that they all played very, very good football as well. They were all trying to push forward. They were all trying to play a game. They weren't trying to sit back and soak up pressure and maybe cause that upset once in a while that we know that the smaller teams can do. They wanted to go out there, they wanted to play good football, they wanted to impress, they wanted to do well. I think, from a personal point of view, Cameron has been very welcoming. There have been some logistical problems, but I think that's every Africa Cup of Nations. As always, I love the fans that come to the stadiums and the noise .

On television I know the stadiums don’t look full. We know that it's difficult for people to travel across Africa, so we're never going to have full stadiums. But it doesn't matter how many fans are in the stadium, they always make a lot of noise. And there's always a lot of color, and it’s the same for every Africa Cup of Nations. So yeah, those are a few of the things that will stand out for me.