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2012 African Cup of Nations: Why Senegal Has the Top Forwards in the Tournament

Joe Tansey@JTansey90X.com LogoFeatured ColumnistJanuary 23, 2012

The 2012 African Cup of Nations is the first major competition that Senegal has qualified for since the 2008 version of the competition, where they were eliminated in the first round and now, the Lions of Teranga are back with a vengeance. 

They have a serious chance of winning the whole tournament and have six top forwards that can get the job done up front.

Some people could even argue that Senegal has the most standout stars at forward than any other country in the world right now with six in-form forwards.  

The Senegal Six include captain Mamadou Niang, Moussa Sow, Souleymane Camara, Dame N'Doye, Papiss Demba Cisse and Demba Ba.

The eldest of the six is Niang, who was a fixture at Marseille for years before leaving in 2010, now playing for Al-Sadd in Qatar. During his time in Ligue 1, Niang scored 71 league goals for Marseille while last season at Fenerbahce in Turkey he scored 15 goals in the Turkish Super Lig.

Sow has been a force in Ligue 1 for Lille as he scored 25 goals in the French top flight last season to help the club gain the Ligue 1 and Coupe de France titles. The 26-year-old could follow the route of Niang by leaving Ligue 1 to join Fenerbahce.

The final player of the three with Ligue 1 connections is Camara who has been a part of Montpellier after joining the club on loan in 2007. He has been the least productive of the Senegal Six as he only scored five goals for his club last season, although the five came in only nine games.

N'Doye has become a great find for Copenhagen in the Danish Superliga. The 26-year-old came to the Danish capital in 2008 from OFI Crete in Greece and has been a top performer for the club since gaining a permanent spot on the team during the 2009-10 season.

With the added opportunity to play in European competition with the Danish champions, N'Doye's goal production has gone up even more, as he scored nine goals in European play in 2009-10. N'Doye's league totals are quite impressive as well as he scored a career-high 25 goals in league play in 2010-11 and he already has 11 total goals so far in the 2011-12 campaign.

Cisse has been a revelation as well and has earned himself a chance to play in the Premier League with Newcastle United, securing his signature before the AFCON tournament. Cisse was playing for SC Freiburg in the German Bundesliga, where last season he scored 22 league goals in 32 games and was on a hot start to the current season with nine goals in 15 games before moving to Newcastle to join his countryman, Ba.

Demba Ba has to be the most recognizable player of the Senegal Six and rightfully so after he has taken the Premier League by storm since signing with Newcastle this summer. The 26-year old broke onto the European scene with Hoffenheim in Germany during the 2008-09 season where he scored 14 goals. After falling out with management, he briefly joined West Ham United before making his way to St. James' Park where he has already broke his career high with 15 goals in the Premier League this season.

With over 100 goals scored by the Senegal Six over the past year at the club level, any combination of the players up front should work for Senegal as they look to get out of Group A which features co-hosts Equatorial Guinea, Zambia and Libya in the always unpredictable African Cup of Nations.