Goals, shocks and incidents galore - why you cant take your eyes off the Africa Cup of Nations

There was a genuine moment of fear in the first week of the Africa Cup of Nations that the tournament was going to be something of a let-down. This year’s extravaganza in Cameroon seemed to have more eyes on it that usual from the watching world, with wider interest coming from Europe in particular to see the ever-growing number of African players at European clubs going back home to represent their nations.

Ad/> There was also cynicism and flat-out disrespect that comes from the competition’s audacity to interrupt the European season, with more than a few people wanting to see the whole event fail as a means of justifying why it is considered an unnecessary inconvenience. TransfersAl Hilal ready to take Aubameyang on loan, pay all his wages — reports21/01/2022 AT 11:30 For those people, they would have felt vindicated in their beliefs when 13 of the first 15 matches in the tournament ended up finishing either 1-0 or 0-0, with very few of these games offering much in the way of memorable moments.

Thankfully, things have improved on both the goal front, the incident front and, crucially, the shock factor and element of surprise that can seemingly occur in every fixture at present. Gambia's Scorpions have upset the odds to add unexpected sting to AFCON Comoros to field outfield player in goal despite Ahamada negative Covid test Big guns fail to fire The biggest element of surprise so far has arguably come from seeing teams expected to go the distance somehow conspiring to fall at the early hurdles.