Re: The Official Africa Cup of Nations South Africa 2013 Thread

[Catracho]

boring AFCON so far... not much has happened since Tunisia's wonder striker..

but heres the current standings:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Africa_Cup_of_Nations#Group_stage

[Die Borussen]

seen 2 games, very dull

[buddytaller]

Burkina Faso vs Ethiopia was certainly exciting, Burkina played some excellent counterattacking football after going a man down leading 1-0 to win the game 4-0. Jonathan Pitriopa and Alaine Traore were my men of the match.

[Cotes]

Burkina Faso vs Ethiopia was certainly exciting, Burkina played some excellent counterattacking football after going a man down leading 1-0 to win the game 4-0. Jonathan Pitriopa and Alaine Traore were my men of the match.

That was a great match...
Hard to believe they were a man down!

[Catracho]

exciting stuff yesterday.. found our Group B winners today.. so next rounds game look like this for right now:

Ghana vs Cape Verde
South Africa vs Mali

[LeBéninois]

looks like it's going to be Ivory Coast vs Nigeriaaa

[Gil]

Mikel, Moses, Emenike, Omeruo, Ambrose, Enyeama and Ideye all impressed me today.

First time watching Nigeria play since the last WC. No unnecessary hoofing, played possession football, played the ball from the back, their players relied on their skill rather than athleticism etc

Rare traits shown by an African team.

[elm_baraja_shaman]

Mikel, Moses, Emenike, Omeruo, Ambrose, Enyeama and Ideye all impressed me today.

First time watching Nigeria play since the last WC. No unnecessary hoofing, played possession football, played the ball from the back, their players relied on their skill rather than athleticism etc

Rare traits shown by an African team.

then you must be new to African football then, Ghana is mostly known for its fun passing and entertaining style if soccer earning her "The Brazilians of African soccer", most West African teams rely on possession and passing...

[LeBéninois]

Mikel, Moses, Emenike, Omeruo, Ambrose, Enyeama and Ideye all impressed me today.

First time watching Nigeria play since the last WC. No unnecessary hoofing, played possession football, played the ball from the back, their players relied on their skill rather than athleticism etc

Rare traits shown by an African team.

then you must be new to African football then, Ghana is mostly known for its fun passing and entertaining style if soccer earning her "The Brazilians of African soccer", most West African teams rely on possession and passing...

Yeah and teams like Egypt , Algeria , ... don't rely on their physique too.
Nigeria has really improved . this young generation actually have hunger

[buddytaller]

Ghana was poor today, this is probably the worst I've seen us play, we were totally outplayed by the Burkinabes, who were at the wrong end of some strange refereeing decisions, Bance was a beast today totally unplayable.

Player of the tournament so far is a four horse race between Pitriopa, Moses, Mikel and Eminike. I'd give it to Pitriopa, he should have had a penalty today but was wrongly showed a second yellow card which would mean he'd miss the finals, I hope CAF rescinds his suspension.

Ghana has reached a new low today, I guess it's time for a total shakeup, the first to go must be the coach Kwesi Appiah, he was clueless the whole tournament.

[McAgger]

So final between Nigeria and Burkina Faso

[Kick]

Hoping Mikel and Moses win it, they've both been pretty good thus far.

[LeBéninois]

Ghana was poor today, this is probably the worst I've seen us play, we were totally outplayed by the Burkinabes, who were at the wrong end of some strange refereeing decisions, Bance was a beast today totally unplayable.

Player of the tournament so far is a four horse race between Pitriopa, Moses, Mikel and Eminike. I'd give it to Pitriopa, he should have had a penalty today but was wrongly showed a second yellow card which would mean he'd miss the finals, I hope CAF rescinds his suspension.

Ghana has reached a new low today, I guess it's time for a total shakeup, the first to go must be the coach Kwesi Appiah, he was clueless the whole tournament.

I would keep him . Some stability is much needed. His squad was good , the problem is Gyan has forgotten how to score and he made a big mistake : Letting André Ayew out . He would have been the scorer in this team. Jus imagine Wakaso/Gyan- Atsu/Gyan -Ayew
He is in fire this season and he is left out ?? he would have brought creativity too.
The penalty Ghana got was not one or if it is that's mean the others should have had at least 2 penalties. The last one was clear and OHH surprise, nothing. Pitropia , best player of his team gets a second yellow and is going to miss the final

[buddytaller]

His dropping of Andre Ayew was politically motivated, Kwesi Appiah and Andre's father the great Abedi Pele, were once teammates in the Black Stars and something similar to the Terry - Ferdinand issue arose.

Kwesi Appiah who was then captain, was stripped of his captaincy, Abedi Pele who was then the darling boy of the nation was made captain. Dropping Jordan and Andre Ayew and refusing to make Ayew captain was a sort of revenge, at least that is what I believe.

It backfired big time, I still think Ghana had more than enough quality to easily beat a side like Burkina Faso. Ghanaians are very impatient, don't be surprised to hear in a week's time that he's been fired.

[LeBéninois]

His dropping of Andre Ayew was politically motivated, Kwesi Appiah and Andre's father the great Abedi Pele, were once teammates in the Black Stars and something similar to the Terry - Ferdinand issue arose.

Kwesi Appiah who was then captain, was stripped of his captaincy, Abedi Pele who was then the darling boy of the nation was made captain. Dropping Jordan and Andre Ayew and refusing to make Ayew captain was a sort of revenge, at least that is what I believe.

It backfired big time, I still think Ghana had more than enough quality to easily beat a side like Burkina Faso. Ghanaians are very impatient, don't be surprised to hear in a week's time that he's been fired.

Well, too bad . Last time you guys had some stability , you almost went to 1/2 of the WC . Problems that i see :
-Lack of a goalscorer : Ayew would have fulfil this role , he is easily better than any of the strikers who played
- Lack of an holding midfielder. Back in 2010 i though Annan could be the one playing that role
- You guys are missing a dynamic mid like essien or kevin boaten ( he dare not try to come back )

[Catracho]

Nigeria vs. Burkina Faso final... interesting

[Art Morte]

Ghana was poor today, this is probably the worst I've seen us play, we were totally outplayed by the Burkinabes, who were at the wrong end of some strange refereeing decisions, Bance was a beast today totally unplayable.

Player of the tournament so far is a four horse race between Pitriopa, Moses, Mikel and Eminike. I'd give it to Pitriopa, he should have had a penalty today but was wrongly showed a second yellow card which would mean he'd miss the finals, I hope CAF rescinds his suspension.

Ghana has reached a new low today, I guess it's time for a total shakeup, the first to go must be the coach Kwesi Appiah, he was clueless the whole tournament.

You watched the match? I'm reading the BBC's match report and maybe my brain is still feeling a little conspiracy theoretical and bribery-ish after Europol's match-fixing news, but judging from the report you can't help wondering... Some quotes:

The Burkinabe were denied spot-kicks in normal time and in extra-time, when they also had a goal ruled out, and saw Jonathan Pitroipa harshly sent off.

Referee Slim Jedidi showed the winger a second yellow card for diving in extra-time when it looked liked a clear foul on the player, having earlier twice turned down plausible penalty claims from the Burkinabe.

They should have won a penalty for what looked a blatant push by John Boye on Pitroipa. But the referee was not impressed, and then ruled that Mady Panandetiguiri had fouled Christian Atsu as the pair rose to battle to get their head on a free-kick into the box and awarded Ghana a penalty, which Wakaso converted.

Soon after came perhaps the most controversial call of the game. Nakoulma beat Asamoah to a throughball and poked the ball past Fatau Dauda but the referee ruled the goal out for a foul that was difficult to detect.

As extra-time ran down, Pitroipa was dismissed when he should have won a penalty.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21339090

From GlobalPost:

The Burkinabe were deserved winners after almost coming unstuck by a series of strange decisions against them by Tunisian referee Slim Jdidi.

Chief among them was a legitimate penalty claim turned down, and a goal disallowed.

Jdidi wrongly waved away claims for an early spot-kick when John Boye barged into Jonathan Pitroipa, knocking his Rennes teammate unceremoniously to the much maligned Mbombela Stadium turf.

But on 13 minutes the referee had no hesitation in giving Ghana a penalty after an innocuous tangle involving Mady Panandetiguiri and Christian Atsu.

Jdidi made another strange decision against Burkina Faso when disallowing Prejuce Nakoulma's goal after a minor clash with Kwadwo Asamoah.

Pitroipa was harshly sent off on 117 minutes for picking up his second booking of the night, for diving, after he had, in fact, been felled. He misses Sunday's final.

Sounds weird to say the least.

[LeBéninois]

Ghana was poor today, this is probably the worst I've seen us play, we were totally outplayed by the Burkinabes, who were at the wrong end of some strange refereeing decisions, Bance was a beast today totally unplayable.

Player of the tournament so far is a four horse race between Pitriopa, Moses, Mikel and Eminike. I'd give it to Pitriopa, he should have had a penalty today but was wrongly showed a second yellow card which would mean he'd miss the finals, I hope CAF rescinds his suspension.

Ghana has reached a new low today, I guess it's time for a total shakeup, the first to go must be the coach Kwesi Appiah, he was clueless the whole tournament.

You watched the match? I'm reading the BBC's match report and maybe my brain is still feeling a little conspiracy theoretical and bribery-ish after Europol's match-fixing news, but judging from the report you can't help wondering... Some quotes:

The Burkinabe were denied spot-kicks in normal time and in extra-time, when they also had a goal ruled out, and saw Jonathan Pitroipa harshly sent off.

Referee Slim Jedidi showed the winger a second yellow card for diving in extra-time when it looked liked a clear foul on the player, having earlier twice turned down plausible penalty claims from the Burkinabe.

They should have won a penalty for what looked a blatant push by John Boye on Pitroipa. But the referee was not impressed, and then ruled that Mady Panandetiguiri had fouled Christian Atsu as the pair rose to battle to get their head on a free-kick into the box and awarded Ghana a penalty, which Wakaso converted.

Soon after came perhaps the most controversial call of the game. Nakoulma beat Asamoah to a throughball and poked the ball past Fatau Dauda but the referee ruled the goal out for a foul that was difficult to detect.

As extra-time ran down, Pitroipa was dismissed when he should have won a penalty.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/21339090

From GlobalPost:

The Burkinabe were deserved winners after almost coming unstuck by a series of strange decisions against them by Tunisian referee Slim Jdidi.

Chief among them was a legitimate penalty claim turned down, and a goal disallowed.

Jdidi wrongly waved away claims for an early spot-kick when John Boye barged into Jonathan Pitroipa, knocking his Rennes teammate unceremoniously to the much maligned Mbombela Stadium turf.

But on 13 minutes the referee had no hesitation in giving Ghana a penalty after an innocuous tangle involving Mady Panandetiguiri and Christian Atsu.

Jdidi made another strange decision against Burkina Faso when disallowing Prejuce Nakoulma's goal after a minor clash with Kwadwo Asamoah.

Pitroipa was harshly sent off on 117 minutes for picking up his second booking of the night, for diving, after he had, in fact, been felled. He misses Sunday's final.

Sounds weird to say the least.

Also there are rumosrs stating that Gyan Asamoah paid one of Niger's defender ( a Ghanian born ) fo him '' not giving his best ''

[elm_baraja_shaman]

am here to praise Burkina Faso, they absolutely deserved to be in the final over us [Ghana]

this certainly was one of the best chances we've ever come in a trophy-less 33 yrs to winning the AFCON but in typical Black Stars fashion we always have to bleep it up.

Tournament aftermath

> how can we select a coach who has had no coaching experience to handle the Black Stars just because the local media lobbied to get him in there because he has been assistant coach for bleep how long? This guy was clueless from Day 1. I for one saw this and told a chat with my high school friends that this coach doesn't know what he is doing but just cos am not based in Ghana and generally typical of Ghanaian people, when you are based in a Western country and you give your ideas the locals think you feel superior to them and so distant your ideas no matter how true they may be.

> no Andre and Jordan, here again bleep clueless Kwesi fkd it time big time, I don't really know what the deal was with Andre's injury but not calling Jordan really? Am forced to believe buddytaller's story and that is disgraceful.

> I am a great advent for local coaches but it is high time the government of Ghana in conjunction with the football authorities as well as the clubs come together and plan to work together. We need a quality coaching school, if the likes of Kwesi Appiah is the best local coach [as I was told by my local friends though I believe Sellas Tetteh would have done better] then its a great disgrace.

The govt must also work to help the clubs to start putting up high class stadiums in a loan format style and take back its revenue for a stipulated time of years till its paid back. This would improve the local league very much, people would get interested in it and actually flock to see games if every region had at least two state of the art stadia at least .

Ghana should follow South Africa's example and protect its local players by placing transfer penalties on foreign teams that want to get the players out, say pay a minimum of $10m to the team, the FA gets like $2m out of it which if well planned could help to develop the local game. This would scare lots of foreign teams away as we have good local players going as far as to play in Thailand and Vietnam which I believe our local league is far better than no disrespect just for financial reasons, these talents most often never materialize.
In this also we should put in a law that says a local player MUST play at least 5 yrs in the local league before he can move abroad. With such structures in place many players can be ready for the bigger stage whilst the local game gets a strong chance of improvement.

> Ghana must work on spot kicks at training, at this stage the whole world knows we chicken out whenever we are forced to spot kicks and rightly so.
Its a Ghanaian cancer, from the average fan to the players, we all knew it was set and done when Burkina took us there.

> Am glad the referee for the game got banned after such horrific refereeing, it was a disgrace to the African game yesterday and such things must not be allowed to continue but am disgusted to hear rumors going on about Ghana bribing the referee. I must say we were just victims of circumstances and had nothing to do with the intentions of the referee who I don't know what he must have been thinking.

@Benin, to say something about Gyan bribing a a Ghanaian born Nigerian defender is the most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life, there we 10 other Nigerians on the field, we totally outplayed them and deserved to win it.

This being said, Ghana needs to get back to the drawing board, first with hiring a competent coach, I'd recommend German Ralph Zumdick the most competent guy I have known who knows the local game well, Ernst Middendorp also comes to mind. We risk not making it to Brazil 2014 if if we don't well rightly so, its time to plan for the future, and with the talents at our disposal i don't see why we cannot rise again....

[LeBéninois]

@Benin, to say something about Gyan bribing a a Ghanaian born Nigerian defender is the most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life, there we 10 other Nigerians on the field, we totally outplayed them and deserved to win it.

It may be an absurd thing to say but i'm just reporting rumors .

Biggest mistake from the coach is not taking the Ayew's brothers . He may be clueless but with André the team would have been more dangerous

[LeBéninois]

@Benin, to say something about Gyan bribing a a Ghanaian born Nigerian defender is the most absurd thing I have ever heard in my life, there we 10 other Nigerians on the field, we totally outplayed them and deserved to win it.

It may be an absurd thing to say but i'm just reporting rumors .

Biggest mistake from the coach is not taking the Ayew's brothers . He may be clueless but with André the team would have been more dangerous

[EL Patron]

Les Burkinabe can win this, they just need Traore to be fit.

[uzonero]

So unbelievable.... Never thought Nigeria would win a cup in my generation

Up 9ja
Up Sunday Mba
PROUDLY NIGERIAN

[RealGunner]

Congrats to nigeria!!!!!!

[buddytaller]

It's hard to say, but congratulations to Nigeria, they were the most impressive team in the tournament. Better luck next time to Burkina Faso and congratulations to Jonathan Pitriopa on being voted the best player of the tournament.

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