2016 Futsal Africa Cup of Nations explained

Tourney Name:	Africa Futsal Cup of Nations
Year:	2016
Country:	South Africa
City:	Johannesburg
Dates:	15–24 April
Num Teams:	8
Confederations:	1
Venues:	2
Cities:	1
Count:	1
Matches:	16
Goals:	99
Top Scorer:	Ricardo Lenio Mendes Muendane
Prevseason:	2011
Nextseason:	2020

The 2016 Africa Futsal Cup of Nations was the sixth edition of the Africa Futsal Cup of Nations, the quadrennial international futsal championship organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) for the men's national teams of Africa. The tournament was held in South Africa between 15–24 April 2016. A total of eight teams played in the tournament.^[1]

Same as previous editions, the tournament acted as the CAF qualifiers for the FIFA Futsal World Cup (except for 2012 when a separate qualifying tournament was organized as the 2011 African Futsal Championship was cancelled). The top three teams of the tournament qualified for the 2016 FIFA Futsal World Cup in Colombia as the CAF representatives.^[2]

On 6 August 2015, the CAF Executive Committee decided to change the name of the tournament from the African Futsal Championship to the Africa Futsal Cup of Nations, similar to the football version, Africa Cup of Nations.^[3]

Champions Morocco, runners-up Egypt and third-placed Mozambique qualified for the 2016 FIFA Futsal World Cup as the CAF representatives.^[4]

Qualification

See main article: article and 2016 Futsal Africa Cup of Nations qualification.

South Africa qualified automatically as hosts, and Egypt also qualified automatically as the highest-placed African team in the 2012 FIFA Futsal World Cup, while the remaining six spots were determined by the qualifying rounds, which took take place in December 2015.

Qualified teams

The following eight teams qualified for the final tournament.

Team	Appearance	Previous best performance
		(2008)
		(1996, 2000, 2004)
		(2008)
		(2000)
		(2004)
(hosts)		(2000)
		(2008)
		(2008)

Venues

The matches were played at the Ellis Park Arena and the Wembley Indoor Stadium in Johannesburg.^[5]

width=185 colspan=2	Johannesburg
Ellis Park Arena	Wembley Indoor Stadium
Capacity: 6,300	Capacity: 2,000

Squads

See main article: article.

Each squad could contain a maximum of 14 players.^[6]

Group stage

The draw for the final tournament of the competition took place on 17 February 2016, 11:00 UTC+2, at the Southern Sun Hotel OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four.^[7] For the draw, the hosts South Africa were seeded in position A1 and Egypt were seeded in position B1. The remaining six teams were drawn from one pot to fill the other positions in the two groups.^[8]

The top two teams of each group advanced to the semi-finals.

TiebreakersThe teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). If tied on points, tiebreakers would be applied in the following order:^[6]

Number of points obtained in games between the teams concerned;
Goal difference in games between the teams concerned;
Goals scored in games between the teams concerned;
If, after applying criteria 1 to 3 to several teams, two teams still have an equal ranking, criteria 1 to 3 are reapplied exclusively to the matches between the two teams in question to determine their final rankings. If this procedure does not lead to a decision, criteria 5 to 7 apply;
Goal difference in all games;
Goals scored in all games;
Drawing of lots.

All times were local, SAST (UTC+2).^[9]

Group A

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Group B

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Knockout stage

In the knockout stage, if a match was level at the end of normal playing time, extra time would be played (two periods of 5 minutes each) and followed, if necessary, by kicks from the penalty mark to determine the winner, except for the third place match where no extra time would be played.^[6]