After an underwhelming start, this was supposed to be the week in which the Africa Cup of Nations blossomed, with knockout football bringing drama and iconic moments after a group stage that, for the large part, seemed to go through the motions.
In some aspects, it has delivered. Comoros were decimated but defiant, Eric Bailly amusingly daft, Youssouf M’Changama and Gabadinho Mhango, players you’d never heard of, scored goals you couldn’t believe, while three penalty shootouts and four matches decided by the odd goal provided tension and jeopardy, if not swashbuckling football.
But amid — or rather, above — it all came tragedy, eight fans killed and more than 35 injured in a crush outside Monday’s tie between Cameroon and Comoros at the Olembe Stadium in the capital of Yaounde.
The newly-built Olembe has been stripped of this Sunday’s quarter-final, though it is still slated to host one semi and the final itself.
Apologies have been made, inquiries promised, condolences offered (including, somewhat mawkishly, on pitchside advertising hoardings mid-game) and now the show must, or at least will, go on.
Cameroon will return to the field for the first time since the disaster as they face Gambia in the opening quarter-final on Saturday afternoon.
The hosts were perhaps the group stage’s most impressive team (certainly the most impressive of those still in the tournament now) but made hard work of their 2-1 win over a Comoros side who played 83 minutes with 10 men and, more pertinently, the full 90 with an outfield player in goal.
They will need to improve against the Scorpions, who are on a remarkable run from the preliminary round of qualifying at their first tournament proper and added the scalp of Guinea in the last-16 to their group stage win over Tunisia.
There was little in that Tunisian performance — nor in their defeat to Mali — to suggest they might go deep in the tournament, a 4-0 victory over minnows Mauritania the sole reason for their presence in the last-16 as a best third-placed team, so, naturally, Mondher Kebaier’s side then produced the upset of the round to eliminate a seemingly in-form Nigeria.
Suddenly, the draw has opened up for the 2004 winners, who now meet Burkina Faso for a place in the last-four tomorrow evening.
Nigeria’s departure, as well as the group stage disappointments of Algeria and Ghana, has left the tournament’s powerhouse population significantly diminished, so much so that Egypt — who knocked out another in Ivory Coast, on penalties — again find themselves in perhaps the only truly heavyweight clash of the round, against Morocco on Sunday afternoon.
The Moroccans, with PSG star Achraf Hakimi and former Southampton man Sofiane Boufal in fine form, have played some of the tournament’s best football whilst exhibiting some of its poorest finishing. Egypt are facing an even greater struggle in front of goal, having scored just twice in their four games so far.
Mo Salah has just one strike to show for his efforts, as should probably be the case for his Liverpool team-mate Sadio Mane, only the winger was controversially allowed to return to the field while concussed to double his tally with the crucial opener in Senegal’s 2-0 last-16 win over Cape Verde.
The pre-tournament favourites have also bought into its goal-shy theme and an Equatorial Guinea who have already defied the odds to end Algeria’s long unbeaten run must surely harbour genuine ambitions of rounding off the quarter-finals with another shock.
