Angola will be looking to maintain their near-perfect record in the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers when they welcome Ghana to Estadio 11 de Novembro on Friday.

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Not many would have predicted Angola to cruise through their AFCON qualifying group, but the Central Africans breezed past Ghana and Sudan in their opening two encounters before making light work of Niger in last month's double header.

Pedro Goncalves's men had Zini to thank for their most recent victory against Niger last time out as his first-minute opener proved to be the difference in a keenly contested affair at the Stade Larbi Zaouli on October 15.

That was an eighth straight victory across all competitions for Los Palancas Negras, who are also without defeat in each of their last 12 outings dating back to a 1-0 loss to Morocco in March's friendly matchup.

More impressively for Angola, they have been solid at both ends of the pitch in that time having come away with a clean sheet on seven different occasions while finding the back of the net a whopping 21 times.

Alongside Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and Congo DR, Angola are one of only five teams still with a perfect record in their AFCON qualifiers to sit top of Group F, five points ahead of Sudan and a further five points clear of Ghana in third.

Having successfully made it through to each of the most recent 10 AFCON tournaments, Ghana were heavily fancied by many to secure safe passage into the group stages of next year's showpiece in Morocco.

However, a 1-0 defeat to Angola on the opening matchday set the tone for Otto Addo's men, who went on to play out back-to-back stalemates against Niger and Sudan before suffering a 2-0 defeat to Sudan last time out.

Quickfire goals from Ahmed Al-Tash and Mohamed Abdel Raman three minutes apart in the second half condemned the Black Stars to an agonising loss in Benghazi to leave them on the verge of crashing out of contention for a place in the 2025 AFCON.

Ghana would need to win their remaining two qualifying matches to stand any chance of leapfrogging Sudan into second place and avoid the catastrophe of missing out on Africa's biggest football showpiece for the first time since 2004.

Currently on a dismal run of just one away victory over the last two years, Friday's visitors will need to produce a huge performance on enemy territory ahead of a must-win clash to preserve their continental ambitions.

Angola possible starting lineup:

Neblu; Fortuna, Gaspar, Bastos, Carneiro; Show, Maestro, Fredy; Milson, Mabululu, Luvumbo

Ghana possible starting lineup:

Ati-Zigi; Mensah, Seidu, Aidoo, Opoku; Sulemana, Kudus, Simpson; Ayew, Fatawu, Paintsil