African Cup of Nations

Rosicky wrote:Glenn not going with you this time

Rosicky wrote:Glenn not going with you this time

Rosicky wrote:Glenn not going with you this time

Group A
Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
Zambia 1 1 0 0 2 1 +1 3
Equatorial G. 1 1 0 0 1 0 +1 3
Senegal 1 0 0 1 1 2 −1 0
Libya 1 0 0 1 0 1 −1 0


21 January 2012
19:30
Equatorial Guinea 1 – 0 Libya Estadio de Bata, Bata
Attendance: 35,000[15]
Referee: Noumandiez Doue (Côte d'Ivoire)
Balboa Goal 87'


21 January 2012
22:00
Senegal 1 – 2 Zambia Estadio de Bata, Bata
Attendance: 17,500[15]
Referee: Neant Alioum (Cameroon)
N'Doye Goal 74' Mayuka Goal 12'
Kalaba Goal 20'

Group B
Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
Angola 1 1 0 0 2 1 +1 3
Côte d'Ivoire 1 1 0 0 1 0 +1 3
Burkina Faso 1 0 0 1 1 2 −1 0
Sudan 1 0 0 1 0 1 −1 0


Côte d'Ivoire 1 – 0 Sudan Nuevo Estadio de Malabo, Malabo
Attendance: 5,000[15]
Referee: Rajindraparsad Seechurn (Mauritius)
Drogba Goal 39'


Burkina Faso 1 – 2 Angola Nuevo Estadio de Malabo, Malabo
Attendance: 17,000[15]
Referee: Mohamed Benouza (Algeria)
A. Traoré Goal 57' Mateus Goal 48'
Manucho Goal 68'

Group C
Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
Gabon 1 1 0 0 2 0 +2 3
Tunisia 1 1 0 0 2 1 +1 3
Morocco 1 0 0 1 1 2 –1 0
Niger 1 0 0 1 0 2 –2 0


23 January 2012
17:00
Gabon 2 – 0 Niger Stade d'Angondjé, Libreville
Attendance: 38,000[15]
Referee: Eddy Maillet (Seychelles)
Aubameyang Goal 30'
N'Guéma Goal 45' Report


23 January 2012
20:00
Morocco 1 – 2 Tunisia Stade d'Angondjé, Libreville
Attendance: 18,000[15]
Referee: Daniel Bennett (South Africa)
Kharja Goal 86' Korbi Goal 34'
Msakni Goal 75'

Team D

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts
Ghana 1 1 0 0 1 0 +1 3
Mali 1 1 0 0 1 0 +1 3
Guinea 1 0 0 1 0 1 −1 0
Botswana 1 0 0 1 0 1 −1 0


24 January 2012
17:00
Ghana 1 – 0 Botswana Stade de Franceville, Franceville
Attendance: 5,000
Referee: Badara Diatta (Senegal)
Mensah Goal 25' Report
24 January 2012
20:00
Mali 1 – 0 Guinea Stade de Franceville, Franceville
Referee: Slim Jedidi (Tunisia)
B. Traoré Goal 30' Report

Rosicky wrote:http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/jan/17/the-question-is-african-football-progressing

Is there any PROGRESS ?

EMP wrote: What a surprise. The Eurocentric agendas are out in force again. Every tournament has poor matches and this has already had some very exciting ones. Every team that made it here got here on merit. Niger had to beat Egypt and South Africa to get here. They earned their trip here the hard way and they played well against Tunisia in an entertaining match. I take it that the usual suspects didn't bother watching Gabon v Morocco, or appreciate the free-kick by Bruno Mbanangoye, or even Asamoah Gyan's or the link play between Andre Ayew and Gyan for Ayew's goal.

Must really grate with Rosicky that Gervinho's got more chance of a trophy here than at the Emirates

Fey wrote:

EMP wrote: What a surprise. The Eurocentric agendas are out in force again. Every tournament has poor matches and this has already had some very exciting ones. Every team that made it here got here on merit. Niger had to beat Egypt and South Africa to get here. They earned their trip here the hard way and they played well against Tunisia in an entertaining match. I take it that the usual suspects didn't bother watching Gabon v Morocco, or appreciate the free-kick by Bruno Mbanangoye, or even Asamoah Gyan's or the link play between Andre Ayew and Gyan for Ayew's goal.

Must really grate with Rosicky that Gervinho's got more chance of a trophy here than at the Emirates

Stop calling me a racist EMP! And stop being so ignorant! I have watched all the matches you mentioned. And I was THRILLED when Gabon made that 3-2. Partly cause it means El Ahmadi comes home early. Infact im watching Gabon right now vs Tunesia. End to end stuff for the nr1 spot! Are you watching? Those shirts of Gabon are amazing!

Infact its my favourite Africa Cup of all time! Especially cause we see some new sides, for example I havent watched a single Ivory Coast match EMP. Im also a fan of the Guinea's! Love the nr10. of that team. Not sure if it was Equatorial or the regular Guinea though.

But please stop with the generalisation of Europeans!

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea -- This has been a tournament that has restored the joy to African soccer. Without the traditional powers of Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, it is as if a great weight both of expectation and fear has been lifted. Only Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana are playing with the albatross of favoritism around their necks, and both have been notably cautious in their opening matches; everybody else seems liberated, as though the subconscious dread of humiliation at the hands of one of the great names has gone (Botswana, who lost by a record 6-1 to Guinea, might regret that). It has been a tournament of fluid, constant attack.

It has already produced two of the greatest finishes to matches in Cup of Nations history. When Kily bent in a 25-yard drive in the final minute to give Equatorial Guinea a 2-1 victory over Senegal, four minutes after the Lions of Teranga had equalized, it prompted the sort of joyous celebrations that raise the hairs on the back of even neutral necks.

If that was beyond Hollywood (a Spanish fourth-division player scoring a goal that good that late in that game in conditions that heavy when his limbs must have felt like lead ....), the sequel took it a stage further. Gabon's win over Morocco was quite possibly the most thrilling international match played in a decade. Morocco led at halftime. Gabon threw on Daniel Cousin, once of Rangers, Lens and Hull City and now, at 34, of Sapins in Libreville. He arrived like a tempest, winning every header. Shots rained in on the Morocco goal until, eventually, a volley from the leanly powerful Pierre-Emerick Aubemayang flew in: 1-1 after 77 minutes.

As fans poured onto the running track and a grinning Ali Bongo, the president of the country, seemed to shake with delight as a general in dress uniform scratched his head behind him, it took two minutes to restart the game. A mere 36 seconds later, Cousin had scored again. Ecstasy was redefined.

But that wasn't it. In the final minute, a Younes Belhanda shot cannoned off the thigh of Charly Moussono and into his arm. It was a debatable foul, but the Gambian referee, Bakary Gassama, had the courage to give it and Houssine Kharja rolled in the penalty. Morocco tried to waste time, but Gassama was strong. He added a fifth minute of injury time and then, in the sixth, Moroccos Mehdi Benatia clattered through the back of Andre Poko on the left corner of the box. Poko was hurt and, by the time he'd been treated and replaced by Lloyd Palun, the clock was past 97.

Bruno Mbanagoye, now at Dinamo Minsk after a career spent most in Tunisia and Turkey, stepped up and whipped the free-kick into the top corner. The rapture, you imagine, must look pretty much like the scenes that followed. This was lump in the throat stuff for everybody, exhausting and uplifting, the perfect finale for a game that, even on second viewing, confirmed its quality.

Is it too strong to say those late winners from Kily and Mbanagoye redeemed the tournament? I'm not sure. The doubts about the rectitude of awarding the hosting rights to countries of questionable reputation and with limited soccer history remain. That there is no simple answer was brought home to me in Mali in 2002. At the time Mali was the fifth-poorest country in the world, and I went there expecting to be appalled at a nation that had spent $60 million on some identikit Chinese stadiums rather than investing the money in infrastructure or food programs that would further the process of improving the lot of its citizens.

But then I saw the celebrations after a 2-0 win over Algeria took the hosts into the quarterfinal. Silencers were taken off mobilettes, so the engines roared in triumph as the riders dragged the lids of petrol cans along the ground, sending up fountains of sparks. Everybody took to the streets; Bamako became one enormous party. I remember clearly one man of at least seventy, his faced deeply lined and his hair white, grabbing my arm and saying, "This is the best night since independence."

Can you put a price on that? A few extra miles of road, a few extra tractors, a few more wells, or an event that became a four-week festival of Malian identity, that nobody who was there, Malian or foreign, will ever forget? You could even argue -- although I'm not sure how you'd ever prove it -- that the spirit of goodwill generated made it $60M well spent even in purely financial terms; after all, a decade on, I'm still telling people how great Mali is and how you really should visit -- I've heard other journalists who were there doing the same.

But leaving that aside, there is a qualm. Can the temporary joy -- and the longer-term memories -- of a soccer tournament, really be set against more fundamental development. To argue it can seem to be legitimizing the "bread and circuses" approach to government satirized by Juvenal. (Actually Juvenal's initial point has been slightly lost; "for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions -- everything," he wrote, "now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses." His attack was on a populace that has turned from lofty ideals to the satisfaction of base desires; he doesn't condemn the imperial government for providing these things.)

Even taking the more familiar interpretation of the phrase -- that is, that so long as governments feed and entertain their people, nobody much cares about anything else -- straight condemnation seems over simplistic. Whatever you may think of the governments of Equatorial Guinea and Gabon -- whatever you may think, indeed, of the way Equatorial Guinea has put together its squad, trawling the world for those of Equatoguinean heritage and those happy to accept a passport of convenience -- do their people not deserve a little joy? Is soccer, perhaps life itself, not richer for moments like those produced by Kily and Mbanagoye?

Separating national team from national government isn't easy, but sometimes it has to be done.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/news/20120130/equatorial-guinea/#ixzz1lA3pmji2

PuroReturns wrote:EMP! Awesome goal by the Ghanaian. He received the pass, controlled it calmly, lifted the ball, looked at goal, aimed and delivered a powerful and accurate unstoppable shot.

The commentator's first word "I'm not sure he meant that".

Of course not, only Gerrard, Lampard through deflections...are capable of making those shots in his little world. The c**t has some nerve with his ignorance.

blutgraetsche wrote:The problem of this board is that it has too many fucking moaners, especially when it comes to international football. Something like genuine excitement doesn't seem to exist anymore, one has to wonder why some actually still watch football matches. Europeanboard is the Statler and Waldorf of football forums.

Fey wrote:Yo EMP!

Some massive riots at your club in Egypt!



50 deaths already, according to the press!

If Egypt would have qualified this wouldnt have happened!