Africa Cup of Nations 2012

Orange Africa Cup of Nations

Botswana 1-2 Mali
Ghana 1-1 Guinea

The win was enough to gain Mali second place in Group D & so a place in the last 8. It was a tight game though & the team from Botswana contributed enough to make sure that Mali could never relax.
Mali now have the prospect of facing co-hosts Gabon in what will be a very noisy affair in the capital, Libreville.

Ghana rather eased into the next round as Group winners, without ever looking like they are going to dominate this competition. Maybe that is what they need though, slow & steady rather than flash & then crash & burn that has been their recent showing in this competition.
They face a tricky tie against Tunisia in the last 8 though & will need to concentrate to beat the North Africans..

A couple of day's break for all the participants now...

Quarter-Finals:

1. 04/02/12: Zambia v Sudan, Bata
2. 04/02/12: Ivory Coast v Equatorial Guinea, Malabo
3. 05/02/12: Gabon v Mali, Libreville
4. 05/02/12: Ghana v Tunisia, Franceville

The romance finally kicked out of the ACON as the results go very much with the form book.

Zambia went one nil up early on but the chance of a Sudan revival were ended on the hour when they had a man sent off & a spot kick awarded against them. Zambia had to take the kick twice to score it but then ran out pretty easy winners.
Bit of a damp squib ending for the side where all their players were actually playing football in their home country. Given that Sudan has been racked by civil war, famine & drought for decades it should bring home to some Premiership players just how lucky they are. For Zambia it is their first appearance in the competitions' semi final for 16 years. Their draw & other results has rather made it an easy passage though.

It could have been a banana skin for Ivory Coast, playing the much under rated co hosts. It was all about that Chelsea man Didier Drogba though. Despite having a first half penalty saved to deny his side an early lead he never gave up & got just rewards for it. Two goals sealed the win for his side while their other Premiership main man, Yaya Toure, finished off an impressive display by netting the third.
So Equatorial Guineas' run comes to a rather inglorious end. They can console themselves with their general over achievement in this competition & by the thought that they were probably beaten by the eventual tournament winners.
If Toure & Drogba can remain in this sort of form then the Ivory Coast are going to be very difficult to beat...I certainly cannot see either Gabon or Mali who they will face in the semi final being much of an obstacle..

The first two semi finals were stone cold certainties as to who would qualify well before the end.
These two both had to go into extra time & one to the final lottery of penalties before a winner could be picked.

The co host nation came so close to defeating Mali & getting through to their first ever ACON semi final.
They were the better side for most of the game & had a host of chances which they couldn't take. They did manage to finally score only for Mali to equalise with just 5 minutes of normal time remaining.
Extra time was a tense & goalless affair & Mali despatched all 5 of their penalties to win it as the hosts had one of their crucially saved.
This was not a classy encounter & Mali did not impress. You have to feel that Ivory Coast will be looking forward eagerly to their semi final..

Ghana got off to a bright start with an early goal after only 10 minutes. However it was one all by half time as the North Africans struck back. It remained that way up to the 90 minutes & so extra time had to be played.
A goalkeeping mistake by Mahtlouthi in the Tunisian goal ended the deadlock & gifted a tight game to Ghana.
Ghana have still not hit the heights that a second favourite billing should justify. They will have another difficult match in the semi final against Zambia.
To be honest that contest could go either way with the form both sides have shown so far in this competition.

The 2 semi finals take place Wednesday night/Thursday morning at 11 pm & 2am kick offs..

Mali 0-1 Ivory Coast
Zambia 1 - 0 Ghana

That the pre-tournament favourites progressed to the finals will hardly come as a surprise. They have not really, yet, hit the heights nor looked like sweeping all before them. However they have still come through every test rather easily as their stars have all performed.
Here it was a solo goal late in the first half that provided the winner from Arsenal's Gervinho. But before that both Didier Drogba and Yaya Toure had both been unlucky with shots that hit the woodwork.

It is in defence that 'The Elephants' have been supreme though & are still yet to concede a goal in the competition. Although the Coast wasted chances to increase the score they did it while rarely being troubled at the other end.
The final will undoubtedly start with them favourites & will probably be a low scoring encounter...which will suit them even better!!

Once the quarter finals had been calculated it looked an odds on certainty that the tournament top two sides would meet in the finals. However no one, apparently, told Zambia that.
The result of the other semi final is a real shock, but deservedly so on the night.
It was a little back to their old self destructive ways for the Ghanians though.
Missed a penalty & having a man sent off never was a recipe for winning a football match & so it turned out yet again. So the Zambians rather rode their luck, but were worthy winners over the 90 minutes given the position of the game.
I think that they will need a great deal more luck in the final on Sunday though if they are to be crowned Champions of Africa.
While the Ivory Coast have not over impressed with dramatic victories, they have not had any look of self destruction about them either. In a one off game it can go either way, but, it will be a huge footballing shock if Drogba & co do not come away as Champions...

Ghana 0-2 Mali Sat 11 Feb

The 3rd. place play off took place yesterday. Not sure exactly what a 3rd. place play off is suppose to settle in a football competition. It is not like there are gold, silver & bronze as in athletics, but it seems to be the fashion & I guess it is money in the coffers. It was the last match of this competition to be played in Equatorial Guinea but as only 6,000 supporters turned up it was not exactly a thundering success.

Mali won it to make this their most successful ACON competition ever, while Ghana were still probably smarting at being excluded from the classier final game today. As Ghana had defeated Mali by the same score during the group stages it was something of a revenge for them.
However the Ghanaian manager, Serbian Goran Stevanovic, didn't seem to have taken the game very seriously. He started without a recognised striker & once his side were reduced to 10 men by a second yellow to Vorsah it was really all over for them.

Can only hope that today's final is taken a little more seriously by the contenders!!

Sun 12 Feb
Zambia 0-0 Ivory Coast
Zambia win 8-7 on penalties

Well, this has been a bit of a topsy turvy competition this time around, right from the very start.
First there was the choice of twin venues, with neither country being anywhere near the top of African football, let alone World football.
Then their were the qualification surprises.
No giant of the African nations on the continent, Nigeria.
Plus no giant of the Arab nations of the continent & winner of the last 3 competitions, Egypt.
Then when the game actually got underway the over achievement of the co-hosts & failure of the strong second & third favourites to reach the later stages was also a shock.
Through it all though favourites Ivory Coast have looked rather supreme & eased through matches without a hitch.
Their name was surely already on the Cup.

It did not turn out that way at all.
Nil nil was a surprising result after 120 minutes of exciting football. True Drogba had the opportunity to win the game after an hour, but fluffed his lines by blazing the penalty over the bar. However the Zambians could also point to a couple of clear cut chances that were saved as well.
Both these sides were miserly in defence. Ivory Coast did not concede a goal the entire way through the competition & Zambia conceded only 3. Extra time passed without incident & it was then down to the dreaded penalties.
It was perfection in the shoot out until it got to 7 all when the nerves finally kicked in.
K Toure (Man City) had his kick saved by the Zambian keeper.
Immediately after Kalaba shot over to keep the scores level.
The Ivorians didn't capitalise though & Gervinho (Arsenal) also went over the post.
Sunzu netted his effort to win the shoot out by 8 to 7.

Much had been made during the run up to the final of the death of the entire Zambian squad in an air crash in the region in 1993 as spurring them on. Not sure if that did, in fact, have a bearing on the outcome of the game as the Coast players seemed to lose a bit of belief as things didn't work out as expected for them during the game.

So all the stars can finally return to their paymasters for another year as the competition closes.
Usually it throws up the odd individual player who has excelled but it was rather more of a team effort by the eventual winners. The 'names' were all in the Ivory Coast side, but even that was not enough to win it for them.
Maybe there is some lesson to be learnt by the rest of the footballing world on that....
but I doubt if they will be listening..