Africa Cup of Nations 2012: Why It's Hard to Choose a Team to Root for in Final

The final match of the Africa Cup of Nations is on Sunday. Zambia will square off against the Ivory Coast, which will be looking to win the African Cup for the first time in two decades. Zambia will be looking to win it for the first time ever.

Who to root for?

It's a question those of us who have no real rooting interest have to ask when it comes to a match like this. I know I'll be tuning in just hoping to see a good match, but one's viewing experience is always enhanced whenever one has a club to root for.

So, once again, who to root for?

Ivory Coast is the team with the star power. Didier Drogba has been with the Ivory Coast team for a decade now, and he is well-known throughout the world thanks in large part to his time with Chelsea in the Premier League.

It's easy to root for Drogba the player. It's even easier to root for Drogba the man. It was he who called for peace in the Ivory Coast after the team qualified for the World Cup in 2006, urging his countrymen to let football bring them together. It was an honorable gesture that will not soon be forgotten.

Drogba and the Ivory Coast came oh-so-close to winning the African Cup that same year, but lost to Egypt in the final on penalties. You want him to win this one, as he's getting up there in age and he's not going to be around forever.

In addition to Drogba, it's just as easy to root for players like Gervinho, Yaya Toure and Kolo Toure, who are also well-known for their work in the Premier League.

But Zambia has to be the sympathetic favorite here. The Ivory Coast squad is supposed to be in the final. Zambia is not. 

Zambia was supposed to be out of the picture in the African Cup as soon as it started. Instead, Zambia has battled its way all the way to the top, and the journey has been an impressive spectacle to behold. Theirs is a classic Cinderella story.

We've seen one of those from Zambia before, in 1994. The year prior, the Zambian national team lost all but one of its players when the team's plane crashed on its way to a World Cup qualifier against Senegal.

The 1994 Zambian team was made up of replacement players, yet made it all the way to the African Cup final anyway, losing to Nigeria 2-1.

This year's run through the African Cup does not have the same tragic backstory, but one wants to see it pay off anyway—partially just to see a deserving team finish what it started, partially so the country as a whole can get a victory it needs.

So who to root for?

The cliche answer would be to say "both." In this case, that also happens to be the only appropriate answer.

No matter which team wins the African Cup this year, it's going to be a great story. It's been a great story, of course, and it will be just that no matter what kind of ending it is given.

For those who venture to watch, merely sitting back and watching the end get written should be enough.