The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations is a gift that keeps giving – serving up entertaining matches, remarkable comebacks, great goals, historic results, and stunning upsets.
One of such stunning upsets is the elimination of record seven-time African champions, Egypt by D.R Congo. The Central African nation took a shock lead, their first at this year’s finals when Meschack Elia headed in from Yoane Wissa’s cross. Nantes striker, Mostafa Mohamed restored parity for Egypt from twelve yards as both teams went into the break level. Both sides drew all three group stage matches prior to their clash and yet again, failed to notch up a win. The Pharaohs without the injured trio of superstar forward, Mohammed Salah, goalkeeper Mohammed El Shewany and influential midfielder, Emam Ashour played out a 1-1 draw before losing a nerve-wracking penalty shoot-out by 8 to 7 kicks.
North African teams have won 33% of the tournament’s titles – 11 in 33 editions with Egypt leading the list with 7 titles, Algeria two titles while Morocco and Tunisia have won 1 apiece. Nonetheless, the 34th edition of the tournament has been a disastrous one for North African teams, with Algeria and Tunisia making a group stage exit while record champions, Egypt have suffered an early exit by their lofty standards. Egypt now have an unwanted record of eight successive draws after full-time across two AFCON editions. The Atlas Lions of Morocco are the only team from the region left and face a tricky South African side in the round of 16.
Mohamed Bayo nicked a header at the dying seconds of the game against 10-man Equatorial Guinea to hand Guinea their first ever AFCON knockout stage win and a place in the quarterfinals. Equatorial Guinea’s midfielder, Federico Bikoro sent off for a high challenge on Guinea’s Bayo just after ten minutes of the restart and their woes were compounded when inspirational captain and tournament’s highest goalscorer, Emiliano Nsue hit the base of the right-hand upright from 12 yards. The penalty miss came back to hunt the EquatoGuineans who conceded a goal with the game’s last kick. Bayo’s goal clocked at 97 minutes and 38 seconds is the latest winning goal in a knockout match in the history of the Africa Cup of Nations. Guinea are into the quarterfinals for the first time since 2015 and will battle D.R Congo on Friday at the Alassane Ouattara Stadium.
