Minnows make ‘em pay
Defending champs Ivory Coast held, Morocco lose in day of upsets
Oyem (Gabon): Defending champions the Ivory Coast and Morocco became just the latest strongly fancied teams who failed to deliver at the African Nations Cup in Gabon.
The Ivorians were held 0-0 by Togo – 21 places below them in the African rankings – after a duel that produced little excitement for a small crowd in the northern town of Oyem.
Morocco, also considered potential champions under twice Nations Cup-winning coach Herve Renard, paid for a goalkeeping blunder as they fell 1-0 to the Democratic Republic (DR) of Congo.
DR Congo, whose last of two Nations Cup triumphs came 43 years ago, surprisingly top Group C after the first round with three points.
Ivory Coast and Togo have one point each and Morocco, whose lone success was in 1976, are pointless at the bottom.
Group winners and runners-up after three matches advance to the quarter-finals, leaving Renard with just two games to perform a salvage operation.
The results followed a string of other unexpected scorelines in the biennial showcase of African football, which kicked off on Saturday.
Guinea-Bissau and Burkina Faso came from behind to gain unexpected draws with Gabon and Cameroon respectively in Group A on the opening day.
Zimbabwe, considered a lightweight among the 16 teams at the tournament, led star-studded Algeria for much of a Group B thriller before pulling off a surprise 2-2 draw.
DR Congo are only the second side to collect maximum points so far, following Senegal, who overcame wasteful Tunisia 2-0 in Group B on Sunday.
“It is not the start that we would have liked,” admitted Ivory Coast coach Michel Dussuyer, who suc- ceeded French Ligue 1-bound Renard after the 2015 triumph. “We could not raise our level of play.
“There are still two matches left. We expect more from ourselves. We did not manage to put intensity into our game.
Togo coach Claude Le Roy was satisfied with a point as he began his ninth Nations Cup having reached the knockout phase in seven previous campaigns. “I feel we had a good match. Hats off to my players. We qualified at the last second in a country where there has not been a championship for the past three years.”
Kazakhstan-based Junior Kabananga profited from a mistake by Munir Mohamedi in the Morocco goal to score the only goal from close range 10 minutes into the second half.
It came two days after the central Africans refused to train over a bonus row and a red card and an injury briefly reduced them to nine men in the closing stages.
The Congolese were reduced to 10 men with eight minutes left when a wild challenge from substitute Joyce Lomalisa earned a second yellow card.
“What we had to do was be patient,” said DR Congo coach Florent Ibenge. “We knew that it could pay off if we were very strong behind.”
Renard said: “I think we got off to a good start. We caused them a lot of problems. We had chances, but were not efficient when it counted.”