The 70 goals scored in the first round of the 26th Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana are one goal less than the highest ever scored at that stage in the history of the competition, dating back to the inaugural tournament in Sudan in 1957, an investigation by PANA has revealed.
The all-time first round goal scoring record is held by the 1998 edition of the tournament in Burkina Faso, when 72 goals were scored in the four groups.
The lowest number of 17 goals in the first stage was recorded 10 years earlier, in Morocco, when the first round was still a two-group format, instead of the four-group format which started in 1992 in Senegal.
Meanwhile, a tally of the goals scored in the first round of the current tournament in Ghana shows that 19 were scored in group A, 12 in group B, 23 in group C and 16 in group D.
Cameroonian striker Samuel Eto’o has already broken the all-time record of 14 individual goals held by Ivorian Laurent Poku.
