The Africa Cup It made headlines, in the weeks prior to its start, due to the uncertainty it generated in European clubs due to the risk of contagion from their displaced players. Once the tournament started, the low goalscoring productivity of the first matches was striking. And if an action became viral, it was that of a referee signaling the end of a match at 85 minutes. All negative noise, all arguments to continue thinking that the competition bothers and that its low level does not justify in any case that the clubs lose important footballers for several weeks. It would be fair that now, that we have just experienced a group stage with a historic outcome, the same loudspeaker be given to the spectacle produced by some surprising results.
Despite being a tournament in which, as in the European Championship, only eight out of twenty-four participants are eliminated in the first round, the DOG has already fired Algeria, the current champion, already Ghana, the African team that has come closest to reaching the semi-finals of a world. They have been two real bombshells, because both were among the favorites -in fact, Algeria was, for almost everyone, the team that headed the forecasts-. The triumph of Comoros 3-2 against Ghana on the last day, in a match that had everything, has already become part of the history of the competition, and we should consider it one of the great surprises of continental tournaments of all time. Comoros is a small archipelago located in southeastern Africa, in the Channel of Mozambique, and its only player with a certain prestige is the forward of the Red Star from Belgrade The Fardou Ben. It will not be the only team that has reached the round of 16 defying the odds. They will be there too Gambia -rookie in the competition, just like Comoros- and a malawi who managed to draw against Senegal of Sgoodbye Mané and Boulaye Dia. At this point we can already say that the Africa Cup 2021 -it preserves in the name the original year in which it should have been disputed- it has been worth it.
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