By Henry Okoduwa

Guinea stormed into the quarter-finals of the ongoing African Cup of Nations tournament in Cote d’Ivoire on Sunday after beating Equitorial Guinea in a crunchy round of 16 tie in Abidjan.

The Guineans punished an uncharacteristically wasteful Equitorial Guinean side when Mohamed Bayo stole in with a header to send the team with the best scoring record out of the tournament in the 98th minute.

Before then, Equitorial Guinea who had enjoyed the tag as the tournament’s giant-killers after handing teams like Guinea-Bissau and hosts, Cote d’Ivoire heavy defeats in the group games had wasted a couple of chances that should have earned them a sweatless passage into the last eight.

Equitorial Guinea came into their round of 16 tie with the Syli Stars of Guinea with an impressive record of scoring nine goals against Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau and Cote d’Ivoire while only conceding just three during their fairy-tale run.

They had climbed to the headship of the Group A table with seven points, while also holding the unique record of having with them a captain — Emilio Nsue — who played a pivotal role in their success in the preliminary stages.

Mysteriously, it did seem that on a day their inspirational skipper fired blanks in a match they desperately needed to win to progress, the whole team also floundered badly as their less-fancied opponents who managed to scrape through as the third best team in Group C seized the initiative to dictate proceedings.

Nsue failed to compensate for the loss of Federico Bicoro who was red-carded in the 56th minute by scoring what seemed a gift of a penalty awarded to his team in the 69th minute.

That miss would come back to haunt them as the Syli Stars went ahead to nick the all important winner at the death to send Equitorial Guinea, a team that showed so much promise out of the competition.

In their moment of grief, it was certain they did not find sympathisers, least of all, from Ivorians who wept sore the day they brutally sent the Elephants crashing down before their eyes at the Alassane Ouattara Stadium in Abidjan.

Guinea’s Mohamed Bayo celebrates his late winner against Equitorial Guinea on Sunday

Equitorial Guinean, however, leave the competition, consoled by the fact that Nsue, their captain was the first man to score a hat trick, as well as the first man to score as many as five goals in the tournament.

He still might scoop the tournament’s highest goal scorer’s award if no player matches or surpasses his tally by the time the competition ends on February 11.

Guinea, their conquerors, now seem headed for the big times as they have an opportunity to go a step further in the competition.
The Syli Stars will face the winner of the Egypt vs Congo DR later in the week.

FULL TIME SCORE

Equitorial Guinean 0, Guinea 1