Defending champions Algeria have been dumped out of the African Cup of Nations in the group stage with a 3-1 loss to an Ivory Coast team that announced itself as a contender for the title.

Ivory Coast's one-sided victory meant Algeria, who were one of the favourites, exited without a win after two shock results earlier in the tournament left them bottom of Group E.

Algeria joined fellow former champions Ghana in leaving early after failing to win a game and finishing bottom of their group.

While those two African soccer powers are on their way home, Comoros and Gambia are on their way to the knockout stage of their first major tournament.

In another surprising result -- the upsets are almost a daily occurrence at this totally unpredictable African Cup in Cameroon -- Gambia scored in the 93rd minute to beat former champion Tunisia 1-0 in Group F.

Ablie Jallow slammed a shot high into the net from the edge of the area for Gambia.

The upshot after the last day of the group stage is: Ivory Coast and Equatorial Guinea are through from Group E and Mali, Gambia and Tunisia -- who were was one of the four best third-place teams -- all progressed from Group F.

Algeria needed to beat Ivory Coast to keep their title defence alive after drawing with Sierra Leone and then finding themselves on the wrong end of one of the biggest upsets in African Cup history when they lost to Equatorial Guinea on Sunday.

They didn't come close to turning it around as Ivory Coast surged into a 3-0 lead in Douala through goals by Franck Kessie and Ibrahim Sangare in the first half, and Nicolas Pepe in the 54th minute.

Algeria did pull one back through Sofiane Bendebka's header but that did nothing to soften the blow of a disastrous tournament for the North Africans.

Ivory Coast set up a last 16 meeting with Egypt on Wednesday in what looks to be the game of the round.

Ivory Coast won the African Cup in 2015 in the Didier Drogba and Yaya Toure era but had been overlooked at this tournament.

That changed with a compelling performance against Algeria which could have easily produced more goals.

Equatorial Guinea followed up their stunner over Algeria by beating 10-man Sierra Leone 1-0 in the other Group E game on Thursday to progress behind group winner Ivory Coast.

Sierra Leone's 37-year-old striker Kei Kamara missed a late penalty that would have put his team through as one of the best third-place teams at the expense of Comoros.

Comoros had to wait since Tuesday to see if they would advance but ultimately squeezed through as the lowest-ranked of the third-place teams.

The tiny island nation stunned four-time African Cup winner Ghana 3-2 in Group C to claim their first victory in major tournament soccer.

Comoros' reward is a last-16 game against host Cameroon at the showpiece Olembe Stadium in Yaounde on Monday.

The African Cup has Friday and Saturday off before returning Sunday with the first two games in the round of 16; Burkina Faso v Gabon and Nigeria v Tunisia.