ANG 4-4 MLI
Amid the flurry of matches that were called off domestically due to snow at the weekend, Africa’s finest kicked off the year 2010 in some style with the opening game in Angola on Sunday. The hosts put on an impressive opening ceremony, before their heros took centre stage along with Mali, observing a minute’s silence in honour of those who died in the Togo bus attack that threatened to cancel the tournament on Friday.
The tournament organisers probably needed the match to be an entertaining one to reinforce the positive areas of the Cup of Nations, and they certainly got their wishin this meeting at the Estadio 11 de Novembro in Luanda. It was not until the end of the first half before the game sprung to life, with Flavio heading in a cross (37′), before getting an almost identical goal soon after (42′). In the second half, Angola added two more, with Gilberto (67′) and Manucho (74′) both converting penalties to send the home crowd wild.
With ten minutes left, though, a mistake by the goalkeeper _ let Seydou Keita in (79′) to grab what seemed to be a consolation goal for the Malians. A strike from Frederic Kanoute (88′) seemed to have a similar role, but injury-time efforts from Keita (90+3′) and Yatabare (90+4′) completed one of the greatest comebacks of all-time, stunning much of the 45,000-strong crowd.
On Monday, the other Group A match between Algeria and Malawi, also in Luanda (with a considerable drop in attendance from the night before (about 1,000 people in attendance)), proved to have another surprise in store, with the Malawians winning 3-0 against the World Cup qualifiers. England might be slightly less fearful of their World Cup opponents after this one…
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