Sports
Source: BBC Sport
THE Africa Cup of Nations and the Asian Cup both begin in January and it will mean dozens of stars from the Premier League travelling to participate.
Afcon runs from 13 January to 11 February in Ivory Coast and the Asian Cup is in Qatar from 12 January to 10 February.
Although the tournaments coincide with winter breaks across some European leagues, Premier League clubs will face a number of weeks without first-team regulars.
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp, who will lose top scorer and Egypt captain Mohamed Salah, said it is something clubs have to plan for.
“We knew the Africa Cup of Nations from time to time appears and Mo has to go,” Klopp said.
“We have [Wataru] Endo as a participant of the Asian Cup as well, so it is like it is. We have to deal with it and we will.”
Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou guided his country Australia to Asian Cup glory in 2015 said both tournaments are important for players who come from the respective regions.
“I rank it pretty highly, I think it’s pretty important,” he said. “A lot of European people think the European Championships are pretty important – well, it’s the same for the Asian Cup or the African Cup of Nations.”
Have the finalised squads been named yet?
The short answer is not quite, so there could yet be some late additions and withdrawals.
Angola, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, DR Congo ,Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia have named their final Afcon squads.
Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gambia, Ghana, Mali, Zambia and Tanzania have so far only named provisional squads of up to 55 players for the tournament.
The final list of up to 27 players per national team for the Afcon has to be submitted by 3 January 2024.
Australia, Iraq, Malaysia and South Korea have announced their final 26-man squads for the Asian Cup.
China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, Tajikistan, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam have so far named provisional squads of up to 50 players.
Bahrain, Iran, Japan, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Uzbekistan have submitted provisional squads to the Asian Football Federation, but have not made them public. Therefore, any players included below from those countries are based on their likely inclusion following recent international fixtures.
Squads for the Asian Cup have to be finalised by 2 January 2024.
T.
-December 30, 2023 @ 9:07 GMT|
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