Algeria were ruthless with the penalties, except for the last one which hit the post. Cote d'Ivoire returned the favor.
Madagascar's fairy tale ended in the second half of their quarter final, when Tunisia ran out to a 3-0 victory.
Two North-African teams advance to the semis, to meet two West-African teams. I'd rank Algeria as favorites, closely followed by Nigeria. It's hard to cal that one, since both countries look really good. If their semi goes all the way to penalties, Senegal might edge the final by being better rested; I think their squad is substantially better than Tunisia's*.
Whatever happens from here on out, the tournament has been a blast, as it so often has been.
*quarter final blow-out or not, I haven't forgotten that in the group phase they didn't even manage to beat Mauritania.
I'm sad Madagascar are out but what a run. Best debutant performance at a previously well-established major finals for some time. (I'll let DG and Ray squabble over Non Iron or Wales in '58 before Sam, cantagalo or ursus or someone comes in and says Peru won the Copa America in 75 on their first ever punt at it).
TG, maybe you're the best person to answer this: what's the religious/ethnic distribution of the Nigeria squad and have there been/are there any subsequent tensions resulting?
TG, maybe you're the best person to answer this: what's the religious/ethnic distribution of the Nigeria squad
Hi Sporting,
As a majority of Nigerian footballers are from the West (predominately Yoruba) and East (predominately Ibo) the religious majority has always been Christian.
There have been a large number of Muslims who have represented such as:
Muda Lawal
Raschid Yekinni
Mr Garba Lawal
And going by the names, there are a couple of Muslims in the current squad:
Abdullahi Shehu
Jamilu Collins
Ahmed Musa
have there been/are there any subsequent tensions resulting?
Religious, no as a number of the Yoruba footballers are Christian and Muslim.
Ethnic, outside of the obvious sectarian nutters it is mainly the subject of bar room discussions of inter-tribal banter when we inevitably crash out against Cameroon and Ghana. It was a bigger deal 20-30 years ago where there were alot of players with similar abilities and the competition for places were much fiercer but even then, allegations of players/agents/politicians bribing the manager to get into the team were taken more seriously.
It is no more different than when England team and the suspicion that playing for a BRC (or Spurs) gets you in ahead of better players at smaller teams.
Maybe it's written on the other side. I must say it's a very strange looking trophy. I like it a lot. The European championship trophy looks like something you'd keep granny in if she didn't want to wind up underground.
As a majority of Nigerian footballers are from the West (predominately Yoruba) and East (predominately Ibo) the religious majority has always been Christian.
There have been a large number of Muslims who have represented such as:
Muda Lawal
Raschid Yekinni
Mr Garba Lawal
And going by the names, there are a couple of Muslims in the current squad:
Abdullahi Shehu
Jamilu Collins
Ahmed Musa
Religious, no as a number of the Yoruba footballers are Christian and Muslim.
Ethnic, outside of the obvious sectarian nutters it is mainly the subject of bar room discussions of inter-tribal banter when we inevitably crash out against Cameroon and Ghana. It was a bigger deal 20-30 years ago where there were alot of players with similar abilities and the competition for places were much fiercer but even then, allegations of players/agents/politicians bribing the manager to get into the team were taken more seriously.
It is no more different than when England team and the suspicion that playing for a BRC (or Spurs) gets you in ahead of better players at smaller teams.
Not many better things in football than a penalty with a stop-start runup being saved. Massive twatball points for our Tunisian friend here; game with Senegal still scoreless.
Glorious FK by Mahrez to beat Nigeria in the last minute of stoppage time. That's how cup matches are supposed to end.
Bonus points for the Nigerian who dropped himself like a felled tree behind the wall while Mahrez did his run-up. If he'd have tried something under the wall, that guy would've blocked it.
So the final will be a re-run of a group game. I'd say that Algeria deserve to win this; they've beaten Senegal in the group too, and while Tunisia were no mugs, Senegal's road to the final was much easier than Algeria's. On the other hand, Senegal have only conceded a single goal in the entire tournament, and I quite like the cut of Aliou Cissé's jib.
This is generally one of my favorite national team tournaments but unfortunately, I missed almost all group games because I was traveling and then watched backwards before BeIN USA started deleting from on demand,. I say all of that because I have no clear sense of the group stage, but have watched all knock-out games. I'd say that this is the final that makes the most sense. Both teams deserve to be here and Algeria have looked the best of the bunch. I think we should have a good final because Algeria will attack and I don't see them pulling the hatchet job on Senegal that Tunisia used. So we should have two attacking sides playing football. I don't think Senegal has been as tactically sophisticated. They seem to choose a wing to attack and then keep that going. It would be nice to have a new champion to mix things up. But Senegal better start practicing the penalties; they've been horrible on this front.
I'll see if I can watch more group games before this final happens to have a better sense of the tournament as a whole.
BTW, the Nigerian who was dropping down behind the wall was chastised by the ref when he dropped down before the wall was set. I've seen other referees follow a similar pattern in other games, which seems ridiculous to me. If the move is illegal then issue a yellow card. If the move is not in violation of the laws of the game then the ref needs to leave it be. And finally on the ref topic, I think the refereeing has been good in the knockout round, but my pet peeve featured again: why does every penalty need to come with a yellow card. There is no way the Algerian defender deserved a yellow card even if I generally agreed with the penalty call. Harsh, but still a penalty.
BTW, the Nigerian who was dropping down behind the wall was chastised by the ref when he dropped down before the wall was set. I've seen other referees follow a similar pattern in other games, which seems ridiculous to me. If the move is illegal then issue a yellow card. If the move is not in violation of the laws of the game then the ref needs to leave it be..
does the ref not have a responsibility to stop anything that might affect players safety?a guy lying behind the wall is a danger to other players and they,with their studs,are a danger to him.id also say that if any opposition player tripped over him once play restarted it would surely be a penalty as hed wilfully put himself there as a hazard to everyone
does the ref not have a responsibility to stop anything that might affect players safety?a guy lying behind the wall is a danger to other players and they,with their studs,are a danger to him.id also say that if any opposition player tripped over him once play restarted it would surely be a penalty as hed wilfully put himself there as a hazard to everyone
does the ref not have a responsibility to stop anything that might affect players safety?a guy lying behind the wall is a danger to other players and they,with their studs,are a danger to him.id also say that if any opposition player tripped over him once play restarted it would surely be a penalty as hed wilfully put himself there as a hazard to everyone
On one hand, I could see how this move of lying down could be seen as unsafe since the defender was facing the goal and wouldn't see a teammate who could step on the defender on the ground. With that said, the insane expansion of handball calls (most notably when attacking players seem to try to kick the ball at the defender's arm rather than go to goal), it makes sense to have one's arms facing the goal rather than the free kick taker. On the other hand, the wall is either going to jump or stay low. If they jump, the balls goes under. Having someone there makes sense.
Nigeria win 0-1 in the third place match. It was a deserving win in a match that wasn't the most exciting. I wouldn't be disappointed if the bronze match in the Olympics was the only third place match to survive. Tunisia gave up another sloppy goal very early in the match and then seemed to want to repeat the tactics used against Senegal, relying on a lot of fouls to slow down Nigeria.
Nigeria is undefeated in third place matches (7-0 if I heard the stat correctly).
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