Africa Cup of Nations Wrap Up: 1.21.08

Day two of the Africa Cup of Nations and plenty to digest. There was Morocco’s 5-1 thrashing of Benin Namibia in a near empty stadium, Cote d’Ivoire’s valuable 1-0 win over Nigeria in Group B and (once the lights came on) Mali’s narrow but necessary 1-0 win over Benin to round out Group A.

Morocco 5-1 Namibia

After the lively 40,000 crowd that greeted Ghana and Guinea yesterday it was very strange and more than a little sad to see Morocco take on Namibia in a more or less empty Accra stadium today. I think I saw tumbleweeds. But Morocco weren’t phased by the apathetic attendance and set about dismantling Morocco straight away. 1-0 after two minutes, 2-0 after four minutes. We were headed for 45-0 of Morocco could keep up the pace.

In the end they had to settle for 5-1. All the goals can be seen here. Soufiane Alloudi scored a hat-trick, with Tarik Sektioui (who looked unstoppably creative down Morocco’s left flank) scored from the spot and Monsef Zerka came off the bench to head home a third. Namibia got frustrated and took to hacking down Morocco’s players, with Alloudi paying for his hat-trick with a knee injury that could rule him out of the next game.

Join Mahmoud at the Morocco blog as he celebrates a big win.

Cote d’Ivoire 1-0 Nigeria

The mother and father of all group games wasn’t quite as explosive as we’d hoped, but it definitely had it’s moments. Nigeria’s left back Tanye Taiwo hit the bar with a Bobby Carlos like free-kick and looked generally very threatening. But though Nigeria fielded the likes of Yakubu, John Utaka, Obafemi Martins and Kanu they weren’t all the threatened. Looks like the Nigerian midfield (with Obi Mikel not looking anything special and Olifinjana looking every bit an English Championship player) isn’t up to the same standard as the forward line.

Cote d’Ivoire were just about the better team. Drogba played and wore the armband, and was inspirational if not very effective. But Drogba’s Chelsea teammate Salomon Kalou was effective, as he dribbled through to score the winner. We’ve already posted it here, but it was so good it’s worth another look:

Love that little roll of the ball.

Nigeria are now on the “death” end of the “Group of Death” and their game against Mali is going to be massive, while Cote d’Ivoire may be emerging as early favourites.

See what Emmanuel has to say on the Nigeria blog and get Gianfranco’s reaction on the Cote d’Ivoire blog.

Mali 1-0 Benin

Embarrassment for the hosts as the lights went out in Sekondi just before kick off. Brilliantly the fans kept the atmosphere going in the dark while the emergency electricians were called in. That little problem fixed, the food-chain-style pecking order was expected to be in operation when The Eagles descended on The Squirrels. Though Mali got the win they needed through a Fredi Kanoute penalty, Benin put up a good fight. The bad news is that this was likely Benin’s best chance of picking up any points.

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