African Cup of Nations: Post-group PBP & analysis (R)

Funny guy

 

I know it's very hard to overcome your strong anti-Algerian resentment and hatred but try to make a little effort and show at least a tiny amount of objectivity because things are starting to get ridiculous.
Chaouchi is in the hospital by now, he had tears in his eyes from pain and you talk about simulating ! Did you knew that he practically missed all the training sessions in the last 4 days due to an intense pain in his back, he was uncertain and had 80 % of chances to miss that game, the coach took HUGE risks by putting him among the starting eleven, it's very likely that he won't be able to play the semi finale.

In addition to this you're totally disregarding the fact that there was at least 8 minutes of additional time (if we combine both halfs of extra time). Well, it's nothing but one of the endless inconsistencies in your posts.

Keep bittering and whining but the truth is that Algeria is in the semi-finals after outrageously dominating their opponents today whether the jealous haters like it or not.

Ivory Coast is down, many more to come. Way to go Algeria !!!

Cheer for Egypt Maruti, and you'll be enduring yet another humiliation.

 

Cote D'Ivoire is all hype! Algeria were better organized and played with more purpose. CIV should discard this illusion that football pundits particularly in Europe give them that they are the best team in Africa. They are not. If they were missing major players as Ghana have been missing they would be found wanting earlier. Algeria is for real. I have been warning the Americans about them; and some of them are dismissing them as usual. One thing about Algeria is they play with such heart when there is something big to play for.

 

im a big CIV fan but damn they never fail to disappoint

 

Dude... I really don't care about Algeria... your just as delusional and pointlessly angry as ALGmoeCFC.

If its true about Chaouchi than I take my comments back. It did however look as if he was simulating and all commentaries noted this as over-the-top time wasting tactics (please check out i.e. Eurosport commentary like "The Algerians are masters of gamesmanship and - guess what? Chaouchi is up."). If not the coach should have changed the keeper and I find it a travesty that he didn't. Totally irresponsible coaching in that case - basically risking crippling of the goalie.

Still - if he plays the next match than he was simulating. You shouldn't play if you have such health issues. You can cripple yourself permanently (and believe me I should know).

Actually there were 7 minutes in total, so Chaouchi still managed to waste 3 minutes and disrupt the flow of the game. But if he was injured then he was injured. And a goalie is a goalie. You can't restart play.

Now... another example of delusion. Yes, they dominated, but lets not exaggerate. If Algeria had outrageously dominated than Cote d'Ivoire wouldn't have had so many scoring opportunities (less than Algeria but still), had a perfectly good goal dissallowed, not have a perfectly good penalty awarded and missed a couple of sitters (with Gervinho the main culprit).

I do however find the lack of objectivity outrageous. No one is taking away the deserved win from you. But the fact is you can't take the bad taste out of your mouth after the abysmal call by the linesman. It's not Algeria's fault naturally. And they should have put Cote d'Ivoire to sleep before that. But still... there should have been a penalty shoot-out as both teams scored 3 goals.

Why should I cheer for Egypt? After all I cheered for Algeria for Algeria to kick Egypt out of the World Cup. If Algeria meet Egypt in the semis I'll be backing Algeria all the way... You'll have me shouting - GO ZIANI! GO MATMOUR!

If Egypt progresses I'll be routing for Algeria. If Cameroon I won't. But good luck anyway.

You Algerian fans have real issues with picking put who your enemy is... Damn. Your trying to make me into an Algerian hater, but I was one of the few people protecting you guys after the Malawi match.

Really look at my posting history. Here is what I wrote after the Malawi game:

Is that a comment an Algerian hater will make?

You guys really need to take a deep breath, take a step back and not try to find enemies everywhere.

p.s. Yes. I was backing Cote d'Ivoire, but I won't go overboard and say that they deserved to win it. They didn't. That doesn't change the fact there are a lot of 'maybes' and 'should haves' in this game.

 

Come on guys lets just forget about it. Algeria dominated and deserved the win, but they weren't effectiv enough.
Let's just look forward to the two derbies in semifinal.

 

Thanks MarocFAN. I really have no idea why I was jumped on... no one is taking away the fact Algeria deserved the win. The ref made a big mistake, but that in no way undermines Algeria's game (albeit it would have led to a penalty shoot-out).

 

that was the worst display I have ever seen from Nigeria in a nations cup match. I was actually hoping Zambia would put us out of our misery, they thouroughly deserved to win as they completely outplayed us, but their finishing and final balls are so damn amateur, it just came back to haunt them. Very poor display by Nigeria with their joke of a coach. We will be exposed in SA if this coach is left to take us to the WC.

 

So far, Ivory Coast and Algeria are the best teams I've seen. Egypt a close third. Ghana must improve.

Nigeria was bad, and were lucky that Zambia couldn't score for their life.

 

I'm still not sure about Algeria. They definitely had a game of their life with Cote d'Ivoire. But do remember how terrible the previous 3 games played with Algeria were. Question is for me: Was that a one-off thing or was Algeria just building its form during the tournament?

I believe Ghana is probably the outsider at the moment. Despite all the attacks on the team I must say Ghana looks like the best tactically organized side at this tournament (save maybe for Algeria and Cameroon - in this department Egypt really looked weak yesterday). They don't have any stars, but got two results with a sound gameplan. Surprising looking how 6 players of the squad that played Angola are under 21, 3 are under 23 and only Kingson and Sarpei were experienced players. That said Ghana was tactically the best team by far at the u20 World Cup (for case in point see the Korea and Brasil game).

The hope for Ghana is Anthony Annan returning to the first squad (arguably Ghana's best player save for Essien) and Rajevac finally giving Adiyiah or Osei in attack to finally give the front formation some well needed creative input.

Nigeria really looked good for gold after Odemwingie returned for the Mozambique game. But they were outplayed. Bad news for Amodu is that he really has next to no way to shake up the squad a bit. He has no creative midfielders to mix up the midfield. The best thing he can do is play Kalu Uche and Obafemi Martins. Also risk it and bring back Taye Taiwo, who is without any doubt one of Nigeria's best players under the condition you have the coaching abilities to use him.

Egypt is an unknown. They had two good games against Benin and Nigeria. But they were the weaker side against Mozambique and Cameroon producing a result solely thanks to pure luck, bad refereeing and terrible defensive errors. Apart from that they should have soundly lost both games... but didn't.

So really we have 4 teams which have failed to consistently impress. Ghana was the most consistent with its decent, if unremarkable form (but is decent enough?). The rest had an on and off tournament.

All in all it seems like teams are really hurting in these conditions: over 30 degrees and 60-80% humidity.

 

with their u20 team, disgrace for nigeria, sack that idiot coach now.

 

I thought that Nigeria never played better, especially the last 45 minutes were good....fighting spirit, always tried...

Congrats to Ghana. Their defence is a rock, but their attack is pretty awful. Today it worked, I am not sure if it will work in the finale.

 

Ahmed Hassan getting the best player award... well... shows you one thing: No player really stood out in the competition if Hassan got the award. He was mediocre for the most part and an appauling actor for the rest of it. Yeah... he scored 2 goals... erm 1 goal... in the 1/4 final, but it was fluke (bad GKing goal).

 

I think this was the worst ANC since 1998. The overall quality of the teams seems to have regressed. Egypt was not as good as they were in 2008. Ghana was understrength. CIV was a total dissapointment, Togo got shot at, Cameroon were also a massive dissapointment, as were Nigeria, and there were way too many poor refereeing decisions which destroyed multiple games, it was not an ANC to remember. 2006 and 2008 were much more exciting and of higher quality.

 

vancity: I don't think the quality has regressed. It's just that this was the first AFCoN (apart from the South Africa one, where the temperatures as nowhere as deadly) where matches were played in the middle of summer. The players suffered and the quality suffered. It was just too hot and humid. Just look at the players and can you truthfully say that the quality of players has regressed?

Btw. I still feel Kwadwo Asamoah had a much better tournament than Hassan. He was really key to Ghana's success.

 

there have been reports that CIV are firing their coach, nothing official yet