This incident that happened in an All African Boxing Championships in Accra in the early sixties is still fresh in my memory.

In the two semi-finals, a Ugandan whipped his opponent so mercilessly that the Ghanaian who won the other semi-final got scared to meet him in the final and he chickened out by feigning injury.

The Ugandan therefore won the gold medal by default.

This story came to my mind when Guinea whitewashed Botswana 6-1 in the second round of the on-going AFCON 12 as a prelude to the final round match against the Black Stars on Wednesday.

I was just wondering  what was on the mind of the Black Stars as they saw Guinea completely destroy a team they struggled to beat by only a goal.

I had the feeling the players would be nervous against Mali the conquerors of Guinea but they rose to the occasion, showed a lot of courage and did it in style.  Asamoah Gyan once again proved that even at half fit he could be as trenchant as ever.

His free -kick curtain raiser came straight from the text book. As for Dede Ayew he will forever remind some of us of who saw at close quarters the exploits of his illustrious father. If they say, “a chip off the old block”, this is one.

Even though mathematically, Ghana cannot be said to have yet qualified for the knock- out stage , the team looks good enough to get at least one point in the final round match against Guinea, who I believe will also be scared about what Ghana did to their conquerors.

I don’t think even the experts regarded the Ghana , Guinea, Mali, Botswana group  as the strongest but it has turned up to be the most exciting with three teams going to the wire.

Mali is heavily tipped to collect maximum points from the whipping boys, Botswana and that makes the Ghana-Guinea fixture quite intriguing.

The mathematics will set in if all three teams tie at six points but I doubt it.  Anyway this is football where logic is on leave.

The nature of football makes it an interesting sport and it is my prayer that the match officials will continue to show the high standard we are witnessing at the tournament to make the game continue to grow.

We’ve had quite a thrilling tournament so far, so let the game play.

Cheers everybody and keep loving sports

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Jan 27th 1994: Ghana beat Guinea 2-1 in the opening match of the Africa Cup of Nations in Tunisia