Africa Cup of Nations Semi finals

The African Cup of Nations semi finals were held yesterday.

The first, Ghana opposing Cameroon was OK. Nothing special, though, which was disappointing. The match ended 1-0, and the 90 minutes perfectly suited the scoreline, with Ghana failing to take their chances, and the slightly better team taking one of theirs. There was an odd point in the game, where one of the players shoved over a stretcher bearer who was tending to an injured player. There seemed to be no reason for the push; maybe he recognised the stretcher bearer from the pub the previous night. Weird.

The Cote d'Ivoire-Egypt match was much more the business. It had some of the character of a World Cup Brazil-Italy game. Cote d'Ivoire have an attacking style, but they were slightly below par last night, and Egypt were efficient and relentless in defence. The Egyptian attack in the end showed that they are as good as anyone in the competition, and put four past the Ivorian goalkeeper, who had previously only let in a singleton. 4-1 at the end of normal time, and Cameroon play Egypt on Sunday.