The african nations cup finally took off despite all the hue and cry
by some premiership coaches for the cancellation of the tournament.
While Togo has genuine concernes about further participation in the
biennial event, the same can not be said of these coaches. The fact
that they would prefer all their respective african players remained
with the club than take part in the event holding in Angola is well
documented and as such, the best response to Redknap, Avram and his
likes is a look-away.
Now to real football matters. Angola started like a team set to
fulfill all their pre-tournament threats that this is their turn. In
every department they dominated and though won two quick penalties,
one can not really take anything away from their display. It was a
class performance as they made the star studded malian midfield chase
the game for over 70 minutes. At 4-0, no one could really say the
scoreline wasn't reflective of the game. Real Madrids Diarra was
guilty so many times of lossing the ball carelessly puting consistent
pressure on the Malian defence. It was only a matter of when not how
will the Angolans score. Flavio grap two quick headed goals from
crosses and at half time the game looked settle. The second half
started in the same way the first ended. With the malian defence
jettery and naive in handling Manucho and Flavio. This time they
conceded two penalties in quick successions. After that everyone
except stephen keshi from the malian point of view looked worried. It
was game over. The Angolans thought it was time to pull out attacking
players for a few defensive options to kill off the game. The right
thing in that circumstance. But they failed woefully at it as they
couldn't hold forth, but rather the absence of threat allowed Keshi
throw everything at the Angolans. Kanoute grabbed a brace, keita got
one and a 93rd minuted equalizer left the Angolan crowd in awe and
disbelieve.
A lesson many teams just won't heed, it is not just over until it is
actually over. The Malians got 3 goals in about 8 minutes, what were
the Angolans thinking? The tournament is sure set to bring more of
this kind of excitement. Tha Malians sure can go far in this
tournament but first they need more denfensive lessons.
