Equatorial Guinea/Congo-Brazzaville: Tougher Tasks Await Equatorial Guinea

Sydney Mahlangu/BackpagePix
Emilio Nsue put hosts Equatorial Guinea ahead early in the first half of the opening game of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations at Bata Stadium, but Congo game back later with an equalizer.
18 January 2015
allAfrica.com
By Nick Said

If hosts Equatorial Guinea are to make any impression on the African Nations Cup then a win in their opener against Congo would appear to have been a must.

Tougher tasks await with matches against much more fancied Burkina Faso and Gabon, and Saturday's opening 1-1 draw with a tricky but limited Congo side will feel very much like two points lost.

For 60 minutes Guinea were the better side but could not add to Emilio Nsue's early goal and were made to pay when Thievy Bifouma netted four minutes from time to steal a point for Congo.

That goal had a deflating effect on the crowd in the stadium, and likely the country too, and it will be a big mental effort now for the hosts to pick themselves up.

What will be worrying too for coach Esteban Becker is the way his side appeared to run out of legs in the final 15 minutes when Congo put them under immense pressure and in truth should have won the game.

Organisers, who will have memories of empty stadiums when Guinea co-hosted the 2012 tournament with Gabon, will hope they can lift themselves to the quarter-finals at least, but that seems an unlikely dream now even with their home-ground advantage and the attacking talents of Nsue and Javier Balboa especially.

Congo's veteran coach Claude LeRoy, never far from offering an excuse, was not pleased with the way his side were looked after on match day, and says the fact they only managed to get to the ground 20 minutes before the warm-ups were due to begin were the reason for his team's lacklustre first half.


"It was close to 40 degrees and we had no air conditioning in the bus," LeRoy told reporters. "We were supposed to have an escort but they left us in the crowd, in a big traffic jam. The police were just smiling.

"Games in competitions like this are won on the small details and CAF have a duty to protect teams. It is not possible that players are disrespected like that. That is why we started so badly."

LeRoy declared himself satisfied with the result and will be pleased with the way his side finished the game, but the brittleness of their defence is a major concern going into their next fixture against Gabon on Wednesday.

"I like to win but tonight I have to be satisfied with the result. How we react from now will be particularly important," he said.
Guinea have a meeting against Burkina Faso on the same night and they too need a positive response against the 2013 finalists.

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