Preamble
Welcome to the second Africa Cup of Nations semi-final, which will decide who will face Ivory Coast on Sunday for the chance to be crowned continental champions. The Black Stars of Ghana are the red hot favourites, but ruling out Equatorial Guinea would be folly – and not only because they have already demonstrated an inability to overcome being literally ruled out (they were, you see, ejected from the tournament in the qualifying rounds for fielding an ineligible player, but were then re-admitted as emergency hosts after Morocco pulled out).
The Equatoguineans may be ranked 118th in the world but they have shown surprising quality in this tournament, whether through goalkeeper Felipe Ovono or flamboyant attackers including Javier Balboa, Kike and Iban. And while the hosts were so enraged by refereeing decisions against them in the early rounds that they dispatched a bitter letter of protest to the Confederation of African Football, they benefitted from a preposterous penalty award in their quarter-final win over Tunisia, one of the decisions that resulted in the referee being suspended for six months. All of which means that today’s refereeing performance will be a factor worth studying.
The performance of Avram Grant will also be subjected to much scrutiny. The appointment of the former Chelsea boss as Ghana manager just a few weeks before the tournament did not exactly spark jubilation and his team’s displays have been patchy despite their progress to the last four. A suspicion lingers that the Black Stars have made it this far despite a slightly malfunctioning team, thanks to the fine compensating form of individuals such as Andre Ayew, Christian Atsu and Asamoah Gyan, the last of whom is a doubt for this match because of injury.
You won’t catch me offering a prediction for this match. Because anything could happen. Let’s just kick back and enjoy.
Paul will be here in a bit.
