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AFCON

SOUTH AFRICA ABORTS NORTH AFRICA’S FULL HOUSE AT AFCON 2019

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BY KUNLE SOLAJA

South Africa’s remarkable bounce back into reckoning by inflicting a 2-1 home defeat on Libya on Sunday aborted what could have been the first full attendance of all the five North African countries at a single edition of the Africa Cup of Nations.

Sports Village Square recalls that Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco all scaled the qualification hurdles, leaving out only Libya which had not made meaningful impact in previous editions apart from getting to the final on home soil in 1982.

Libya needed to win the match while South Africa was just to avoid a defeat. Both teams played goalless in the reversed leg in South Africa and that set the Bafana Bafana on the path of possible missing out.

That was further heightened by the consecutive victories that Nigeria’s Super Eagles which had earlier stumbled at home on match day 1.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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