Full-time: Cameroon 2-0 Ghana
The worst Cameroon team in a generation - that’s what they were called before the tournament - have reached the Africa Cup of Nations final! And they deserved it, they outfought, outplayed and, indeed, out-coached Ghana. Razak will cop fearful stick for his mistake that led to the opening goal but fingers should also be pointed at Ghana’s scruffiness in the final third and their stodginess throughout.
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GOAL! Cameroon 2-0 Ghana (Bassagog 90+3)
That’s a wonderful counter-attack! Ghana wasted their own attacking opportunities with several dreadful crosses and then they were hit with a 2v1 break. Aboubakar played in Bassagog, who carried it forward 30 yards and flipped the ball past Razak to ignite delirious celebrations!
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90+2 min: Cameroon almost seal victory with a swift counter! Fai dazzled his way into the box before pulling the ball back to Aboubakar, who swept it over the bar from 12 yards!
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90 min: Ghana simply aren’t threatening enough. They have four more minutes to summon the urgency and cutting edge that they’s lacked so far.
88 min: Lovely play by Jordan Ayew. He dances past two defenders on the left wing and then floats a wicked ball towards the back post. Teikeu rises majestically to head it away!
85 min: Grant makes another change: Badu on, Partey off.
83 min: Jordan Ayew flights in a corner. Gyan launches himself at it but his header is deflected over by Siani for another corner. That one is pushed behind by Ondoa. So there’ll be yet another corner. The pressure is building on Cameroon...
80 min: Moukandjo booked for tim-wasting. That’s how Cameroon are going to roll from here on in, you suspect, unless Mr Gassama keeps flashing the cards. He’s been tip-top so far, the ref.
78 min: Andre Ayew clips the ball across goal. But it’s just too long for Gyan.
76 min: Razak, incidentally has a toy Spider-man figurine in his goal to bring him luck. Which suggests that his opponents keep countering that by deploying Mysterio and the Green Goblin, though I haven’t spotted them yet.
75 min: Cameroon show their intention to cling on to this lead by replacing Djoum with Mandjeck.
74 min: Here comes Asamoah Gyan. Ghana’s all-time leading scorer is introduced for Acquah. Ghana are going for it! Can he save the Black Stars? No one will want him to do so more than poor Razak.
GOAL! Cameroon 1-0 Ghana (Ngadeu-Ngadjui 71)
Oh dear. That’s a horrible moment for Razak. He came off his line to intercept a freekick delivered from outside the area (after a spectacular foul by Wakasu). But the keeper got nowhere near the ball and succeeded only in distracting Boye, who merely headed softly backwards. Ngadeu-Ngadjui controlled it at the back post with his left before scooping the ball into the net with his right foot from an acute angle while falling backwards!
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68 min: Corner to Ghana. Lots of people jump for it but no one makes a clean connection. The ball drops at the feet of Andre Ayew five yards from goal! He’s too surprised to perform the immaculate control required, so Cameroon can recover and welly the ball to safety.
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66 min: Bassogog relieves the pressure on Cameroon by carrying the ball upfield. He then switches play cunningly to bring in Moukandjo on the left wing. Moukandjo darts into the box and tries to toe-poke a low shot past the keeper. Nothing doing.
63 min: Cameroon are being forced deeper and deeper. But they’re still defending well enough to deny Ghana clear chances. Partey resorts to an attempt from 25 yards. But he drags it wide.
60 min: Atsu gallops down the right - he’s been Ghana’s most sprightly attacker so far - but his run comes to an abrupt end when Djoum clunks him to the ground. Freekick to Ghana about 27 yards, to the left of the box. Wakasu goes for goal, curling a sweet shot towards the far corner. But, once again, Ondoa watched it all the way and was on hand to push it clear with both hands.
58 min: Ghana have gained control of midfield and are restricting the once-dominant Cameroon to counter-attacks.
55 min: Nice, fast play by Ghana. They swept forward down the right before Jordan Ayew pinged a teasing low ball into the six-yard box. Andre Ayew flung himself at it but so did Razak, and the keeper got there first, saving his team and hurting Ayew in the process.
52 min: Acheampong makes good ground down the left and then digs out a wicked cross. The ball flies right across the face of goal. Acheampong watches on and wonders why no team-mates anticipated such a delivery. The explanation, perhaps, is that there has been a general goofiness around the box from attackers on both sides so far. It’s getting annoying, to be fair.
51 min: Atsu has team-mates waiting for a cross in the box. So he decides to shoot from 30 yards. It’s absurdly far off target.
49 min: A slack pass by the hitherto excellent Teikeu presents the ball to Partey. Cameroon scramble their defence quickly enough to prevent the forward from punishing Teikeu, who, once the danger has cleared, turns around to issue a bollocking to his team-mates. Textbook blame deflection, but he’s fooling no one!
48 min: Ghana have monopolised the ball so far in this half, but in a monotonous way. As in the first half their play is too ponderous to unhinge Cameroon.
46 min: The teams are back on the pitch with the same personnel as before the interval. But Avram Grant is in earnest conversation with Asamoah Gyan on the sidelines: might he be unleashed soon?
Half-time: Cameroon 0-0 Ghana
Cameroon were the better side - faster, more robust and, surprisingly, more enterprising than Ghana, who’ve been short of ideas and spark. It’s an engaging, high-energy fare but could really do with more deftness around the boxes.
45 min: Wakaso careers in from the side and dispossesses Moukandjo, who was winding up a shot from 20 yards. It was a risky but brilliant tackle.
43 min: Atsu cuts in from the right wing and lets fly with a shot from 25 yards. It take sa nick off Djoum and then deflects off the head of Teikeu. But Ondoa kept his eye on it and caught it safely.
42 min: Ondoa calmly takes a cross by Andre Ayew as if picking apples from a tree, despite the presence of two attackers.
40 min: Atsu produces the best pass of the match, rewarding a smart run across the box by Jordan Ayew by depositing the ball at his feet. From a difficult angle Ayew flashes a low shot across the keeper ... and just wide of the far post!
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39 min: A long ball down the right wing drops over Acheampong, who is caught out as Tambe races behind him and collects it. But Tambe makes a mess of his attempted cross. Scruffy final balls are the main reasons Cameroon are not in front by now.
36 min: Presumably the hosts have decided to let locals in for free or very little, because people have been filing into the ground continually since kickoff and it now looks about 75% full. At least, the bits visible on TV do.
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33 min: Andre Ayew carries his defensive burden well, tracking Fai all the way before muscling him off the ball before the Cameroonian could deliver another cross from the right.
31 min: Tambe has a chance to slip a pass through to Moukandjo but decides to go for goal himself. It’s a bad decision and his 25-yard shot fails to beat the first defender.
28 min: That’s a bit more like it from Ghana! A swish move opens up the Cameroonian defence. But after Jordan Ayew plays in Acheampong with a foxy backheel, the full-back loses his bearings and smashes his cross-cum-shot into the nearest defender. Boye then heads over from the corner.
27 min: Wakasu obviously doesn’t share most people’s high opinion of Ondoa. He tries to beat the young keeper from 40 yards with a low rasper. The keeper watched it hurtle wide.
24 min: Atsu flashes a pass from the right win into Partey at the edge of the box. He does well to keep hold of it despite harassment from a defender. Then he lays it back to Jordan Ayew, who blems a shot high and wide. But that was at least a positive move from Ghana, who injected some much-needed fizz into their passing.
22 min: Razak makes a fine save to deny Tambe. It wouldn’t have been a goal even if the ball had beaten the keeper - because the whistle had gone for offside - but Razak is eager to demonstrate his competence at every opportunity.
20 min: Another cross by Bassogog takes a deflection that sends it looping towards the far post, causing panic among the Ghanaian defence. The danger eventually fades but the latest proof of Ghana’s unease at the back can only have encouraged Cameroon.
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17 min: Ghana have stemmed the flow in the last few minutes and succeeding in bogging things down in midfield.
14 min: It’s all Cameroon at the moment. They’re stronger and sharper and have a clearer game plan - revolving around regular crossing and sporadic long shots. Zoua has just banged a decent long-range effort a yard wide. They’ve evidently decided to take the initiative and put more pressure on the beleaguered Razak, who’s coped well so far.
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11 min: Now that was a good cross! A low one pinged from the left by Moukandjo whizzed all the way to Tambe, who shot first time from nine yards. It was straight at Razak but the goalkeeper still had to show quick reflexes to keep it out. Operation Redemption begins well.
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9 min: Cameroon keep working their way into threatening position down the wins but so far their crossing has not been of the same quality as their build-up play.
7 min: The ever-dynamic Bassogog wins a corner for Cameroon. Teikeu gets a powerful head on it in front of the near post ... but Afful is well placed to boot if off the line!
5 min: Afful and Acquah combine nimbly down the right but Moukandjo tracked them all the way and got a good block on Acquah’s attempted cross. From the ensuing corner Jordan Ayew got away from his marker and had a chance to flip a volley towards goals from nine yards - but he completely missed the ball.
3 min: It’s been an intense opening with lots of forceful challenges and purposeful passing. But all around midfield so far.
1 min: Cameroon gets the show going.
Kickoff is nigh. For those of you following in black and white, Ghana are in black and white. Cameroon are in their forest green jerseys and red shorts. Not Forest Green Rovers jerseys, by the way, just a lush verdant hue, is what I mean.
Ghana’s national anthem is a snappier number and so is the version played over the PA system.
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The Cameroonian players and fans have finished signing their national anthem and are now turning wave at each other and exchanges best wishes. But the guy operating the PA seems to have got hold of a long version of the song because it’s still blaring out around the ground.
The teams are in the tunnel, which, with 22 players and a stack of officials, is considerably more crowded than the rest of the stadium. There are vast expanses of empty seats. The handful of people in attendance, however, look to be having a merry ball.
Here’s Harry Middleton, who’s apparently a big admirer of today’s referee. “Caf have appointed their best ref for this, Bakary Papa Gassama from Gambia. He was again voted Africa’s best referee last year, and despite being from a very small nation certainly deserves the tag. He has a modern style, showing a determined and confident approach. He was ‘discovered’ at AFCON 2012, and since then has been a rising star in world refereeing. Since then, he was selected for Brazil 2014 and showed one of the best performances of the whole competition in Netherlands - Chile, but still wasn’t appointed again. He was selected to arbitrate the AFCON final in 2015, and showed a satisfactory performance. At last the last two championships, refereed have essentially been retired after controversial performances - hopefully Gassama showes a good performance tonight! His lines are being run by Jean-Claude Birumushanu (Burundi) and Waleed Ahmed Ali (Sudan). Joshua Bondo functions as Fourth Official.” That’s all true, Harry, but Ghana were not happy with his performance when in their group match against Egypt, when he was unusually pernickety and took an extreme aversion to aerial duels, in particular. Normally he’s excellent, though, so let’s hope he’s back to his best today.
As you can see from the lineups below, Avram Grant has decided to keep faith with his goalkeeper Razak Brimah whose unorthodox technique – both in goalkeeping and debating terms – has drawn fire from Ghanaian critics. That makes a lot of sense, if you ask me, because Brimah is the best keeper in the Black Stars’ squad and will surely be extra concentrated and motivated after being given this chance to redeem recent failings. It could still backfire, of course, in which case we’ll point and laugh at Avram Grant for making such an obvious selection blunder. That’s how it works, right?
Elsewhere on Ghana’s team sheet, it’s sad to see there’s no Asamoah Gyan. He’s been to the semi-final six times but never won the darn tournament and now he’s been prevented from starting here because of injury. That places a even heavier goalscoring burden on the Ayew brothers. For Cameroon, of course, Benjamin Moukandjo is the main danger and Christian Bassogog could make regular inroads down the wing. But chances are Cameroon will spend a lot of time on the back foot – so it’s a good thing that they, at least, have an excellent young goalkeepers in Fabrice Ondoa.
Let’s be having it.
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Preamble
Hello and welcome to a heavyweight clash that will determine who gets to face Egypt on Sunday for the right to be crowned champions of Africa. Ghana and Cameroon are two of the continent’s mightiest football nations but it has been a painfully long time since either of them were kings – especially for Ghana, who haven’t been No1 in Africa since Toto were No1 in America with Africa. Sorry, that’s an unwieldy way of saying 1982. As for Cameroon, they’ve won the tournament four times since then but it has still been 15 years since they could be called the Indomitable Lions without someone raising a quibble.
Funny thing is, Cameroon have exceeded expectations by even making it to the semi-final this time. I could elaborate on that but there’s no point because Jonathan Wilson already has. Ghana, meanwhile, will catch all manner of flak if they fail here, what with them having stuttered for much of the last two years. Progressing to the final would go some way towards atonement, though for full redemption they would have to reverse an annoying recent trend of defeats to Egypt. We’ll peruse the line-ups shortly, but in the meantime you should could consider The Fiver’s bold forecast for this match.
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Teams
Cameroon: Ondoa, Oyongo, Fai, Ngadeu, Teikeu, Siani, Djoum, Zoua, Moukandjo, Bassogog, Tambe
Ghana: Brimah; Acheampong, Afful, Amartey, Boye; Wakaso, Acquah, Partey, Atsu, A Ayew, J. Ayew
Referee: B Gassama (Gambia)
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