It was yet again the much-awaited third-place battle of this year’s edition of the AFCON (African Cup of Nations tournament). Nigeria and Tunisia who both lost their respective semifinal clashes in a heartbreaking manner, will be locking horns against each other for a chance to salvage something out of this tournament as third-place bronze winners.
Nigeria entered into this AFCON edition as one of the strong favourites to play in the finals, but their aim was cut short after their heartbreaking loss to Algeria. Nevertheless, they were determined not to go empty-handed, making the third place a crucial game for them. Their wings as the super eagles were broken after their disappointing semifinal loss, but they have mended them to emerge as the AFCON 2019 third-place winners.
Tunisia have come a long way in this competition and was pretty disappointed to not be in the finals. However, their hopes of salving something out of this competition was made void as the Super Eagles of Nigeria who proved too strong by just a single early goal.
Brief Post-Match Analyses
The atmosphere at the Al-Salam Stadium Cairo was great and loud as expected, with supporters all colourful and were filled with excitements for the battle.
Nigeria setup in their usual 4-2-3-1 formation while Tunisia setup in a 4-3-3 formation. The game began and Nigeria immediately made their impact very early in the game, controlling the early parts of the first half and were rewarded with an early goal that eventually became the goal that makes them the third-place winners. Tunisia had their moments in the game, trying to get the crucial equalizer but their efforts weren’t enough to cause any real danger to the super eagles.
Odion Ighalo, the super eagles number 9, gave the super eagles of Nigeria the deserved lead very early in the game, a very good anticipation by him to pounce on a spilt ball to put Nigeria in front.
This victory now means that Nigeria are now the AFCON 2019 third-place winners bronze, a great moment for the Nigerians as they now have something to smile about and lay their mark in this year’s edition of the African cup of nations. Tunisia, on the other hand, will be disappointed to be going home empty-handed. Above all, it was a great AFCON 2019 experience for all the teams involved as we look forward to an exciting final clash between Senegal vs Algeria this coming Friday.
This post can also be found on my scorum blog here
What do you think of this match?