A 24 men match

Gallo Images

By Tshepo Ntsoelengoe

If we were to talk about the best game in the Afcon tournament 2013 in South Africa, there is absolutely with no doubt that it will have to go to the semi-final game between Ghana and Burkina Faso. Both teams had extra 12th men in the night of one of the best African football game so far at the Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban.

Ghana had the backing of the referee while Burkina Faso had passionate fans that rallied behind them from the top of the match as the Tunisian referee was clearly trying to makes things easy for the Black Stars.

In the papers, the match was won by tournament favorite’s Ghana, however, to their surprise, the Burkinabes stood their ground firmly and were prepared to fight even though it seemed like the referee also decided who must win the match from the point he started blowing the whistle for kick-off giving the Black Stars some respect over minors Burkina Faso, who have reached the Afcon final for the very first time.

Some dubious decisions were taken by the man from Tunisia and as the time went on, everyone who was watching the game could clearly see that the ref was against Burkina Faso.

He gave what we could call a soft penalty in the way of Ghana, after a not so hard 50/50 challenge between Asamoah Gyan and the Burkina Faso defender, and later denied a clear penalty in the way of the Burkinabe making their lives difficult as they were trying all their best to make scores even.

But all of the misjudgments and unfair refereeing did not stop the West African side to fight, it rather gave them more hunger and willingness to win the game. And it was when lethal striker, Aristide Bance equalized and everything seemed to be possible for them as the game went into extra time.

And the fighting spirit of the French league player, Jonathan Pitriopa also played a crucial role in the game, giving the underdogs some light whenever they were on attack. But later, the winger was shown red card following second booking, another dubious call from ref as the game was on extra time.

However, Burkinabe’s strong mentality and the fighting spirit paid off in the end as the West Africans won the game on penalties reaching the final for the first time.