News

Equatorial Guinea dumped highly fancied Senegal out of the African Cup of Nations last night, and they did it in some style too.

With one minute of stoppage time remaining at the end of the game, Equatorial Guinea’s Kily Alvarez rocketed home a piledriver from the edge of the area (see above) to send his side into the last eight and send the 40,000 crowd in Bata delirious with joy.

You might think qualification for the quarter-finals isn’t such a big deal, but a little bit of context needs to be applied in this case. First of all, it was Equatorial Guinea’s first ever African Cup of Nations. Second of all, they are ranked 151st in the world and third of all, their coach, Gilson Paulo, met his squad for the first time three weeks ago.

What’s more, Senegal had levelled the game in the 89th minute through Moussa Sow, moments before Kily applied the coup de grace in the 94th minute. Even though there was only a minute left, the drama didn’t end there, as the hosts had defender Laurence Doe sent off before the finish.

Still, there was some consolation to be taken for Newcastle United fans or those who have Demba Ba on their fantasy football teams, as Ba and his compatriot Papiss Demba Cisse will return to the Magpies far earlier than expected.

Not such good news for Leon Best, though.