Equatorial Guinea demolish Cote D’Ivoire as Nigeria qualify

Equatorial Guinea cruised through to the last 16 as Group A winners, along with runners-up Nigeria.

Equatorial Guinea thrashed hosts Côte d’Ivoire 4-0 in one of the upset of the tournament while Nigeria edged out Guinea Bissau 1-0.

Cote D’Ivoire will have to wait for their fate.

The Nzalang Nacional advance to the knock out stage of the tournament as they finish top of the group even though they are level on seven points with second-placed Nigeria.

The result leaves the home side’s chances of progessing to the knock-out phase hnaging by a thread as they finish third place in Group A.

The Elephants started brighter but were left to rue missed chances when Nsue coolly slotted home to give Equatorial Guinea a half-time lead.

The Elephants laid siege after the break but saw two goals correctly ruled out for offside by VAR before Ganet stunned the hosts by curling in a brilliant 72nd-minute free-kick.

Shellshocked Cote d’Ivoire’s pain was compounded when Nsue clinically finished a rapid counter to bag his second before Buyla rounded off the rout late on.

The humiliating defeat means the Elephants must now wait to discover if they have progressed to the knock out phase of the tournament. 

But for Equatorial Guinea, this famous four-goal demolition top Group A ahead of their highly fancied opponents Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire.

Having lowered the boast of one of Africa’s strongest sides, the minnows from central Africa have suddenly emerged as giant-killers.

Post-match reactions: 

Juan Micha – Equatorial Guinea Coach

“We knew that the opponent had a lot of pressure, we took that into account when putting our strategy in place. With our humility, we made the effort to reach as far as possible. We are working to reach the level of the big guys.  What we want is to do our job, believe in ourselves and try to win every time”.

“Regarding Cote d’Ivoire, I am hurt because it is the organizing country but it is football. I believe that the objective is to go through the different stages until the end. We must forget this match and plan for the rest of the competition.

Jean-Louis Gasset – Cote d’Ivoire Coach

“There are sometimes nightmare matches, matches where everything seems to be against you. We conceded a goal in the first half on the opponent’s only opportunity. We score goals which are disallowed, we have witnessed a perfect disaster. We have three points, we won a match, the four best third places are qualified, we will hope. 

“We have an efficiency problem. In 180 minutes, we didn’t score a goal and yet we made substitutes to have more attackers. Today the result was catastrophic, I know that I am the main responsible person”.

[CAFonline]