African Nations Cup

The first game of the 2010 African Nations Cup showed us just why this tournament is so exciting to watch. With Angola 4-0 up after 79 minutes, Mali somehow conspired to score four goals of their own in the final 11 minutes of normal time, ensuring a share of the points and an incredible ending to the opening game.

As the host nation Angola hit the ground running and easily dominated the Mali midfield, even though Mali were the favourites to win. 5.8’ striker Amando Flavio scored with 2 headers after 36 and 42 minutes to put the hosts 2-0 at halftime.

Mali coach Stephen Keshi must have invoked the spirit of Alex Fergusons ‘hairdryer’ technique at halftime, as Mali came out for the second half with much more intent, with Mahamadou Diarra and Freddie Kanoute both testing Angolan Keeper Carlos Fernandez from the restart.

Angola held their nerve though, and went even further ahead in the 67^th minute when Mamadou Bagayoko brought down Angola’s Gilberto on the left-hand side of the area. From the resulting penalty Gilberto pushed his shot past the goalies left hand side. Even though Sidibe got a hand to it, he couldn’t keep it out. However, the penalty had to be retaken for encroachment, and this time Gilberto smashed it into the top left hand corner to make the score 3-0 to Angola.

Just when you thought it could get any worse for Mali, it did. Seven minutes later and Gilberto is again taken out in the box. This time Manucho steps up and tucks the resulting penalty away to make it 4-0 to Angola and game over.

Or so everyone thought apart from the Mali team. After Mali scored what everyone thought was a consolation goal in the 79^th minute when Carlos Fernandez made a hash of collecting an easy corner under no pressure, a goalmouth scramble of non league proportions occurred with Seydou Keita smashing the ball hom at a million miles an hour from all of one yard out to make it 4-1. Suddenly Angola collapsed, and for all their brilliant attacking speed and flair, the defence was shown up to be as shaky as Michael J Fox on a Wii Fit board. Freddi Kanout bagged Malis second goal on 88 minutes with a leaping header, and with just 2 minutes left, you would have thought that Angola could hold on.

However in the 4 minutes of added time, Mali managed to score twice more, with Seydou Keita and Mustapha Yatabare both netting to make the final score 4-4.

Group A