African Cup of Nations SemiFinals – three red cards and five goals.
The African Cup of Nations drew ever closer to it’s finale today as Egypt, Algeria, Ghana and Nigeria all faced off in the Semi’s, with the winners heading towards a place in the Final and the losers set to battle it out in a third place playoff.
Nigeria and Ghana started the day with a late afternoon kickoff. Both sides have been somewhat disappointing so far in the tournament and have yet to show any real flair, and they didn’t really show any in this match.
The game began slow with both teams doing very little attacking early on. The first chance came on twenty-one minutes and was duly converted by Gyan for Ghana, with the forward heading home a corner.
Nigeria came close a few times but Ghana somehow held on and managed to scrape through into the Final with Nigeria going into the Third Place Playoff game.
The Egypt Vs Algeria match was also slow to start but with about five minutes of the first half left to play things really picked up. Halliche fouled in the penalty area and was shown his second yellow card, the penalty was converted by Hosny for Egypt who feinted before striking the ball. The Algerian Goalkeeper was furious with the way the penalty was taken and he directed his displeasure towards the referee, head-butting the official, but somehow he was only shown a yellow card.
Zidan got his first goal in this competition to make it 2-0 before Algeria went down to nine men when Belhadj was shown a straight red for a reckless challenge. Substitute Abdel-shafi scored the third with his first touch of the game and then Goalkeeper Chaouchi was shown his second yellow as Algeria were reduced to eight. Gedo completed the scoring with the last kick of the game as Egypt won 4-0.
