African Nations Cup

Tournament favourites Ivory Coast showed the form that had previously eluded them in Group B to beat heavyweight group rivals Ghana 3-1 in the group stages of the African Nations Cup – and they had to do it with 10 men.

Emmanuel Eboue was given a straight red in the 55^th for a reckless two footed tackle, but by this time the Elephants were already one up after the impressive (and quite frankly terrifying looking) Gervinho had given Ivory Coast the lead after 23 minutes after good work by Yaya Toure and Kalou.

Ghana were playing their first game in the tournament after the withdrawal of Togo and the lack of match sharpness showed. It was perhaps unfortunate that they had to play Ivory Coast  – had it been a weaker team they would have been able to get up to speed and progress, but with only 2 matches each in this group a defeat was not the start that Ghana needed.

However, Asamoah almost equalised with a fierce left footed shot from 20 yeards that was brilliantly saved by Barry Copa. At half time, Essien was brought on to provide more steel to the midfield, and after Eboue was sent off Ghana must have felt that they had a chance, expecially when Amoah hit the post with a left foot volley.

However Ivory Coast doubled their lead when Tiene scored direct from a free kick on the right that curled in to the top corner, and they were three up on 90 minutes after Keita crossed for Drogba to head in.

In injury time Ghana were awarded a penalty and Gyen sent Copa the wrong way, but it was too late to have any positive impact on the result leaving Ghana needing a win against defensively minded Burkina Faso to go through to the knock out stages.

Group B