Atta Kusi, a former defender for Asante Kotoko, regrets playing football.

Egypt hopes that Omar Marmoush and Mohamed Salah maintain their club form.

The Africa Cup of Nations qualifying campaign is halfway through, and the 48 teams in the group stage will play each other both at home and away as the field starts to take shape for the tournament in Morocco the following year.

Here are the main talking topics for the upcoming fixtures, which will feature plenty of captivating narratives and intriguing subplots to immerse yourself in both on and off the field.

Together, Salah and Marmoush will represent Egypt.

 
Omar Marmoush of Eintracht Frankfurt, not Mohamed Salah of Liverpool, has been North Africa's standout player in Europe's top divisions during the first few weeks of the season.

Although Salah has contributed to eight goals for Arne Slot's Liverpool team, including four goals and four assists, Marmoush has been playing at a higher level in the German Bundesliga.

With eight goals and four assists in six league games under Eintracht coach Dino Toppmoller, the 25-year-old has found his rhythm and is starting to make a name for himself as Africa's next big star.

Marmoush made his Pharaohs debut in 2021, but it is reasonable to say that his reputation has never been higher after he scored more goals in his last six Frankfurt games than in his whole Egypt career.

The idea of an in-form Marmoush playing with the famous Salah in the next doubleheader against Mauritania, as well as a possible Nations Cup and FIFA World Cup in the upcoming 20 months, has Egypt supporters salivating.

Salah may even anticipate passing the torch to Marmoush before the end of this cycle.

The new age in Senegal begins

Senegal enters an international break without head coach Aliou Cissé for the first time since 2015.

The former captain of the Teranga Lions, who played for the squad in the 2002 World Cup, managed Senegal to two World Cups and led the West African nation to victory in the 2022 AFCON final, defeating Egypt.

However, Cissé was told earlier this month that his contract will not be extended after he failed to accomplish a number of his previous goals, including keeping the Africa Cup of Nations.

Another member of the 2002 generation, Pape Thiaw, who was Cissé's assistant before taking over as interim head coach, will lead Senegal into this international break and a doubleheader against Malawi.

With players like Sadio Mané, Nicolas Jackson, Iliman Ndiaye, and Boulaye Dia leading a formidable offensive group, Thiaw has an abundance of quality at his disposal that should help Senegal get through this strange Cissé-less era.

 

Who is in charge of Nigeria without Osimhen?

The Galatasaray loanee, Victor Osimhen, will miss the Super Eagles' doubleheader against Libya due to his ongoing fitness issues. Since leading Napoli to the Serie A championship in 2023, injury problems have hampered Africa's reigning Footballer of the Year's career. This is just another setback.

Osimhen is "with [the team] spiritually," according to Super Eagles interim coach Augustine Eguavoen, but he still needs to choose who will lead the line for the West African powerhouses. Nigeria, like Senegal, is going on an international break without a permanent head coach.

Nigeria has failed to be the sum of its parts in recent international breaks, despite having a plethora of attacking alternatives. In their last international match, they were unable to score against poor Rwanda.

With Taiwo Awoniyi and Kelechi Iheanacho as potential substitute coaches, Victor Boniface, who is now playing well for Bayer Leverkusen, seems to be the most likely candidate to succeed Osimhen.

Could the Nigeria Football Federation start to view Eguavoen as a long-term alternative if he can assemble a strong attacking team from the players at his disposal?

Ivory Coast once more sans Haller

As Sébastien Haller misses another international break, reigning African champions Ivory Coast must also adjust to life without one of their AFCON lucky charms.

Despite being included in Emerse Fae's squad for the international break, the Leganés forward on loan has already spent more time in the treatment room than Osimhen and has been forced to withdraw.

The uncapped Guy Stephane Bedi, who has been establishing himself on the domestic Ivory Coast scene with San Pedro, will take the 30-year-old striker's place when he misses out due to yet another injury complaint.

Despite Haller's absence, Fae will know that, after defeating Zambia and Chad in their first group games, he can guarantee his team's spot in the upcoming Nations Cup in their two games against Sierra Leone.

With three goals in Ivory Coast's opening two group matches, Paris FC's Jean-Philipe Krasso is leading the scoring charts and hoping to show the Elephants what lies ahead beyond Hall.

Is a player dropped by Mali due to his height?

Moussa Sylla, a former France Under-21 player who is currently at Schalke 04, was a somewhat unexpected exclusion from Tom Saintfiet's Mali team for Friday and Monday's matches against Guinea-Bissau.

Despite his stellar play for Schalke, which led local media to ask Saintfiet about his absence, Sylla has been forgotten since making his debut for the national team earlier this year.

The head coach from Belgium offered a somewhat original reason for his exclusion.

At a news conference, Saintfiet stated, "Sylla should be here, but we have El Bilal Toure, our first choice, and we are very satisfied with Sekou Koita."

"We believed that our adversaries were comparable in scale, which can be challenging. The others are smaller than Mamadou Doumbia. We wanted a player with a different height, which is the primary reason I selected Doumbia over Sylla, even though he is young.

With a height of 180 cm and six goals in eight Bundesliga 2 games this season, Sylla must be wondering how he can get back into the coach's plans without gaining a few more centimeters.

A 'conflict of interests' claim caused Appiah to resign from his position in Ghana.
Due to former Black Stars head coach Kwesi Appiah's participation in the Sudan dugout, Ghana's two matches versus Sudan this week have an interesting undercurrent.

During his playing career, the 64-year-old won an AFCON with Ghana. From 2007 until 2020, he served in a number of capacities within the Ghana Football Association (GFA), including as head coach of the Black Stars during their contentious 2014 World Cup campaign.

Before this week, Appiah, the head coach of Sudan, was also a member of the GFA's Executive Committee. However, he chose to resign from this position following a directive from the Confederation of African Football, which ESPN saw, that suggested there might be a "conflict of interests" if Appiah was involved with both the Ghanaian and Sudanese federations simultaneously.

Although it is unclear if he will be welcomed back if the Falcons of Jediane cause the Black Stars to suffer another qualifying loss, Appiah decided to put his duties with the Ghana federation on hold, at least until next month.

Ghana cannot afford to make a mistake with only one point from their first two games.

Is Eto'o-Cameroon making a change?

With tensions between the nation's sports ministry and national federation (FECAFOOT) president Samuel Eto'o having subsided in recent weeks, Cameroon appears to be in a calm situation as it enters an international break.

While Belgian head coach Marc Brys, Eto'o's longtime rival, was permitted to make his squad announcement in peace, Eto'o and sports minister Narcisse Mouelle Kombi put on a united front during a rare public appearance together at the Cameroon Cup final in late September, raising hopes that the country's footballing civil war may be coming to an end.

During recent international breaks, the federation and the ministry seemed to be pulling in opposing directions and trying to score points against each other rather than supporting the national team, but this is a far cry from those times.

It is still being determined if this tense ceasefire would last past the Indomitable Lions' two games against Kenya, but Eto'o was even scheduled to visit the Ministry of Sports and Physical Education on Tuesday for the first time in several months.