by The result may not matter at all in hit ball. You go through, you go out, the rest is noise. But that is especially true when the tie is the biggest rivalry in modern Sub-Saharan African football. It wasn’t the prettiest game, but it was never meant to be, especially when you add a slippery pitch with dew (and maybe the 25 minutes of water it took before kick-off).
Not many people will watch the full 90 minutes back with childish wonder. But it doesn’t matter. Nigeria will face Angola in the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations; Cameroon go home.
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Nigeria were the better team. Victor Osimhen led the line relentlessly and with intelligence. Ademola Lookman took his two goals well. Alex Iwobi was the biggest man in the midfield. At the back, William Troost-Ekong was a colossus, completely dominant against Frank Magri. That’s three clean sheets in a row for Nigeria now and the grumbles of the fans and the journalists are resorting to the rash assessment. Hold it tight and, where there is Osimhen, there is hope. “It was a tough game, an emotional game,” said Nigeria coach José Peseiro, “but we played with heart and controlled the game.”
Cameroon’s tournament was basically a flurry in the last few minutes of games when panic took them to an unexpected height. They troubled Senegal and came through the chaos of the final against The Gambia but here, even after the introduction of Vincent Aboubakar, they offered little more than the conjecture, collecting no shots on goal and only one corner . This is not a great Cameroon squad but Rigobert Song, their manager, is certainly on loan after the World Cup failure.
Song has been criticized for being a little more than a real head and his assistant, Augustine Simo, who organizes the tactics. “You have coaches and you have managers,” he said. “I’m a manager, which means what it means. You don’t coach a national team, you manage it.” But the turn and defeat of André Onana hardly indicates anything definitive. After all the grief, the Manchester United keeper played one game and did not make a single save.
In a remarkable tournament with unusual openness, both Nigeria and Cameroon looked like retreating, ungainly giants playing in the style of ten years ago, filling all the gaps, keeping it narrow and close and hoping for a set play or a flash inspiration. generate something. This is a classic competition: since 1980, as Ghana failed to live up to the glory days of CK Gyamfi, they have been the two most successful sides in sub-Saharan Africa, the only two African teams to win Olympic gold . Three times Cameroon beat Nigeria in the Nations Cup final.
Gelson Dala scored twice for Angola as they reached the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations with a comprehensive 3-0 last-16 victory over neighbors Namibia, who were conceded four minutes into the first half.
Angola, who claimed their biggest ever victory in a Nations Cup final, had an early goal when goalkeeper Neblu was red-carded for handling outside the penalty area to stop a chipped shot from Bethuel Muzeu.
Namibia had the most chances to score but the game turned when Gelson opened the scoring after 38 minutes, with a superbly taken goal. Fredy was played into space on the right side of the box and his low cross provided a tap-in.
Namibian defender Lubeni Haukongo received a second yellow card needlessly shortly after and the Angola forward completed his double from the resulting free-kick.
Angola added a third goal through Mabululu in the second half and now awaits a quarter-final against Nigeria, who beat Cameroon 2-0. Reuters
A derby atmosphere in a pleasantly packed stadium, a sense of a game that, whatever the outcome, would fade through the generations, two teams feeling in form, unsure of themselves and their place in the landscape modern … perhaps inevitably it should be cagey.
It was almost inevitable that the opener, when it came nine minutes before the break, came from a mistake, but it still took awareness and selflessness from Osimhen to do it. The Napoli striker only scored once in the group stage, missing many chances, but there is no doubt that he is the key figure in this Nigerian attack. After receiving possession from Oumar Gonzalez, he showed great strength to hold off the midfielder and then, with a chance to shoot, laid the ball to Ademola Lookman whose shot deflected off Fabrice Ondoa and , on the slick turf, slithered over the line as a desperate Gonzalez scrambled back.
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Lookman added his second from Calvin Bassey’s cross and Cameroon committed the men to go ahead late on. It would be a bit misleading to say that it was a case of game management for Nigeria after the initial opening as it would suggest that they changed their approach; instead the questioning of safety which seems to be his natural style under Peseiro continued to give them control while their threat was limited to whatever Osimhen could turn.
It may not have been much, but it was still more than Cameroon could muster.
