Once more the upcoming African Nations Cup Promises to be one of the most exciting in history.
This might be the case because the more globalized media perspective is registering more and more African player names from more and more countries being successful as professional players at Europe.
Another factor should be the very special constellation of 2006:

The CAN 2006 will be THE cup of unfulfilled expectations as it follows a World Cup qualifier campaign which has produced huge upsets and big disappointments. Of the 6 top ranked African teams due to FIFA only one have qualified for the World tournament at Germany next summer.
Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, Morocco, Egypt, and South Africa have been beaten and can’t offer fans and media another disappointment, regarded the aggressions that are often seen to be triggered through disappointments. Egypt as hosts feel an additional responsibility to come up with an accepted result.

To those six, 5 teams add which are under pressure to confirm their result of the World Cup qualifiers. Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Tunisia, Togo, and to some extent Angola, too, will not be allowed an early exit if they want to cling to a stable, unhysterical build up to the summer tournament. There are enough cases in history which have shown administrations lose their nerves after an unsuccessful Nations Cup and deconstruct the before successful constellation for a hastily build new one and a World Cup failure in consequence.
All in all we have up to 11 teams which are expected to be in the semi finals at Egypt and 7 of them will not be there for sure. At least 3 of them will not even see the second round.
Those unrealistic expectations will put up an intense pressure on the protagonists and this does not necessarily mean that the matches will be attractive and daring.

Even the 5 remaining outsiders will not have an easy life: Neither in Libya, nor Zimbabwe, Zambia, Congo or Guinea a return with 3 defeats will be accepted just because the competition has been so harsh.