AFCON of new records

No doubt, the 2013 African Cup of Nations, AFCON has created its own new records. The AFCON witnessed the first goalless draw in the opening match ever and five draws like the 2002 edition. Could it be that, truly, there are no more minnows in the continent?

Ghana's Badu scoring from a penalty spot

Just like any other competition, the 2013 African Cup of Nations, AFCON has created its own records hence adding to the already created-history of the Confederation of African Football, CAF competition.

Since the AFCON started in 1957, the opening match has always witnessed goals but the opening match between the host nation, South Africa and debutants, Cape Verde did not produced any goal.

Records have shown that all the tournament, from 1957 till 2012, goals were scored. At the last edition in Equatorial Guinea/Gabon in 2012, the host country, Equatorial Guinea defeated Libya by 1-0 in the opening match.

In 2010 AFCON in Angola, it was Angola 4, Mali 4 while in 2008, hosted by Ghana, it was Black Stars of Ghana 2, Guinea 1. AFCON 2006 in Egypt, produced a result which saw the host win by 3-0 against Libya.

AFCON 2004 saw the host, Tunisia win by 2–1 against Rwanda. Mali 2002: Mali 1– Liberia 1. In Ghana 2000, co-hosted with Nigeria, Ghana played the first opening match and drew with Cameroon 1-1.

Burkina-Faso 1998: Burkina-Faso lost to Cameroon by 0-1 while 1996 saw the host, South Africa defeat Cameroon by 3-0. In Tunisia 1994: Tunisia was defeated by 0-2 by Mali. 1992 and 1990 also produced goals which saw Nigeria defeating Senegal by 2-1 and Algeria defeating Nigeria by 5-1 in the 1992 and 1990 respectively. The same was witnessed from Sudan 1957 to Morocco 1988 edition.

Another unique record created in this year’s edition is the number of draws recorded in the opening matches. Though, this is not the first time the AFCON will be witnessing draws in the first group matches.

In AFCON 2002 in Mali, out of the first eight group matches played, five draws were witnessed. Unlike the edition in Mali which saw four goalless draw, this year’s edition has just two draws, incidentally in the first two matches in group A.

The first match between Bafana Bafana of South Africa and Cape Verde Islands ended goalless; the same with the second match between Angola and Morocco. The Black Stars of Ghana and Congo DR also ended their encounter by 2-2. The match between Zambia and Ethiopia ended 1-1, the same with the match between Nigeria and Burkina-Faso.

Out of the eight matches played in the first group stage, only Mali, Cote d’Ivoire and Tunisia won their matches. Mali defeated Niger by 1-0, Cote d’Ivoire won their West African neighbours Togo by 2-1 while Tunisia defeated their Northern counterparts, Algeria by 1-0 in a desert war.

Meanwhile, another thing that makes the AFCON 2013 exceptional is the last minute goals scored by some teams in the first group matches. Some of them are either equalisers or deciders. Congo DR started the show after trailing the Black Stars of Ghana by 0-2. The goals were scored by the duo of Agyemang-Badu and Asamoah. When it looks as if the three-point was in the kitty of the Ghanaians, Mpufu got the first goal for Congo, then Mbokani got the equaliser after converting a penalty in the last minute hence sharing the point.

As if that was not enough, the Antelopes of Ethiopia repeated the same feat against the Chipolopolo of Zambia. Adane Girmagrabbed the equaliser shortly after Collins Mbesuma put the defending champions, Zambia ahead. Girma scored in the 88^th minute to share the point with Zambia, while Seydou Keita of Mali proved that his years in Barcelona were not wasted when he got the decider in the 84^th minute in the match against Niger.

Nigeria's Mikel Obi slugging it out with Ethiopian's Minyahil Teshome

The Stallions of Burkina-Faso were not left out of the show as they inflicted pains on the Super Eagles of Nigeria equalising in the last minute of added time. Alain Traoré grabbed the equaliser in the fourth minute of added time for the Stallions.

Gervinho on the other hand, also got the decider in the 88^th minute for Cote d’Ivoire in the match against Togo. Youssef Msakni also grabbed the decider in the 90^th minute for Tunisia in the match against Algeria.

Soccer analysts opined that with the performances churned out so far especially in the first group matches, it would be difficult to separate the contenders from the pretenders for the eventual winner of the 2013 AFCON.