Abidjan: Big names Mohamed Salah and Victor Osimhen endured a difficult start to the Africa Cup of Nations as Sunday turned into a day for the underdog.
Salah needed to score a late penalty to spare Egypt’s embarrassment by drawing 2-2 against Mozambique, and Osimhen was unable to lift Nigeria to a winning start as the “Super Eagles” were held 1-1 by Equatorial Guinea in their opening game.
Four-time champion Ghana conceded in injury time to lose 2-1 to Cape Verde, maintaining the small Atlantic island nation’s record of never losing its opening Africa Cup game in four tournament appearances.
“It’s a big team in Africa, in the world. Ghana has a lot of good players. But we showed tonight that we have a good team, good players, and we deserved to win,” Cape Verde veteran Ryan Mendes said. Salah stayed cool to score from the spot in the seventh minute of second-half stoppage time after Domingos was adjudged to have fouled Mostafa Mohamed in a VAR review.
That denied Mozambique its first-ever tournament win at the 13th attempt. But the team was still cheered by the majority of fans.
Salah had also set up Mohamed to fire in the opener in the second minute of the Group B game. agencies