AFCON Spills and Thrills

Fungai Muderere
THE 2017 Total Afcon soccer extravaganza continues to produce spills and thrills and before Thursday nighta��s Group B matches only one game had not produce a yellow card.

Two goalless draws (Ivory Coast 0 Togo 0, Mali 0 Egypt 0) and four wins were posted of the ten games played including Cameroona��s 2-1 triumph over Guinea Bissau.

Six games ended in stalemates (Gabon 1 Guinea Bissau 1, Burkina Faso 1 Cameroon 1, Algeria 2 Zimbabwe 2, Ivory Coast 0 Togo 0, Mali 0 Egypt 0, Gabon 1 Burkina Faso1)

Before the Group B second round of matches, 17 goals came in the first 10 minutes of the matches while four of them came from the penalty spot.

The 17 goals had come from 16 different players as Riyad Mahrez scored twice for Algeria to earn a late 2-2 draw against impressive Zimbabwe.

Mahrez was leading the chats before he did duty for Algeria against Tunisia and this came against a background of the fact that 18 goals is the haul that established Cameroona��s Samuel Etoa��o as the tournamenta��s all-time leading scorer. Ivorian Laurent Pokou follows with 14 goals, while Nigerian icon Rashidi Yekini sits third with 13.

From the 16 participating teams in Gabon, seven countries Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Togo, Morocco, Uganda, Mali and Egypt were by Thursday night yet find the back of the net in the 31stA� edition of Africaa��s biggest soccer tournament.

The two all draw between Zimbabwe and Algeria is a game that had produced the most number of goals scored in a single match.

Interestingly, CA?te da��Ivoire former player Laurent Pokou scored a record five in a single game for CA?te da��Ivoire when they romped to a 6-1 win over Ethiopia at the 1970 finals, hosted in Sudan.

It is a record now more than four decades old and one rarely threatened. The same game also holds the record for the biggest margin of victory at a Cup of Nations match.

It being a physichal sport, before Thursday, 21 cautions had been dished out plus one red card that was shown to Democratic Republic of Congoa��s Joyce Lomalisa in their 1-0 win against Morocco.

The substitute picked up two yellow cards in quick succession a�� one for wasting time and another for a needless foul a�� meaning his team-mates had to see out the final stages of the game a man down.

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