Baciro Cande’ leaves out Piqueti in Guinea Bissau’s final AFCON 2023 list

Baciro Candé, the coach of Guinea Bissau, unveiled on Friday a list of 25 players selected for the 2023 African Cup of Nations, a competition during which the Djurtus will first face hosts Côte d’Ivoire (13/01) , before challenging Equatorial Guinea (01/18) and Nigeria (01/22). The list reserves some surprises.

The first being the absence of Alexandre Mendy. Certainly, the SM Caen striker was already absent from the earlier-list, but the fact of not seeing him play in the AFCON will undoubtedly surprise the followers of Ligue 2, a championship in which he is at the top of the scorers’ rankings, with 12 goals in 18 matches.

At 29, the cousin of Senegalese international Nampalys Mendy (who could also miss the AFCON) is having another high-scoring season in the backroom of the French football.

Alexandre Mendy scored 19 and 16 goals in the two previous years – and his absence is necessarily disappointing.

Former team ‘executives’ Piqueti (30 years old, 37 caps and 7 goals) – has not been called up since March 2023 – and to a lesser extent Jorginho (28 years old, 25 caps and 5 goals), who was pre-selected, but didn’t make the list.