African Cup of Nations. Algeria hosted the finals, so they and Cameroon as reigning African champion directly qualified. The other 6 teams were decided by the qualifications. As usual, there were countries which withdrew: Uganda, Gambia, Mauritania in the preliminary round, Togo, Sierra Leone, and Libya in the first round. Madagascar was disqualified by CAF for non-payment of membership fee. Libya distinguished itself by qualifying to the first round because Mauritania withdrew and then withdrew without facing Tunisia – that is, Libya went 2 rounds without playing a single match. All too familiar in Africa, but the finals put a new twist: Egypt qualified to them and then decided to withdrew to prepare its national team better for the World Cup. Host Algeria protested to FIFA and FIFA forced Egypt to participate in the African finals – if not, Egypt was to be expelled from FIFA and thus from playing at the World Cup. Egypt sent a B team to the African finals. Cameroon, also mostly concerned with World Cup preparations took the African finals mostly as training phase and did not play seriously. So… the finals:
Group A – played in Algiers.
1.ALGERIA 3 3 0 0 10- 1 6
2.NIGERIA 3 2 0 1 3- 5 4
3.Ivory Coast 3 1 0 2 3- 5 2
4.Egypt 3 0 0 3 1- 6 0
Note that in the first group match Algeria destroyed Nigeria 5-1.
Group B – played in Annaba.
1.ZAMBIA 3 2 1 0 2- 0 5
2.SENEGAL 3 1 2 0 2- 0 4
3.Cameroon 3 1 0 2 2- 3 2
4.Kenya 3 0 1 2 0- 3 1
Semifinals
(Annaba)
12- 3-90 Zambia 0-2 Nigeria
[Okechukwu 18, Yekini 77]
(Algiers)
12- 3-90 Algeria 2-1 Senegal
[Menad 4, Amani 62; (og) 20]
Third Place Match (Algiers)
15- 3-90 Zambia 1-0 Senegal
[Chikabala 73]
Final (Algiers)
16- 3-90 Algeria 1-0 Nigeria
[Oudjani 38]
The final repeated the opening match of the finals, but there was big difference – the first time Algeria won easily 5-1. At the final they won again, but with difficulties, a minimal 1-0. Still, they won again.
Nigeria got silver and to a point it was the beginning of the big ascent of this country in the football world: the team was coached by Clemens Westerhof, the Dutch coach which led Nigeria to international significance. Only two players of the squad were based in Europe (Friday Elaho – Brondby, Denmark, and Andrew Use – KSV Roesoder, Belgium), but a good number of soon to be famous players were already at hand – Ben Iroha, Uche Okechukwu, Emmanuel Okocha, Rashidi Yekini, Daniel Amokachi. They still played at home, but very soon will play for much bigger European clubs than Brondby. It was steady rise of Nigerian football,which was perhaps the most stable in the continent – 3rd in 1976, 3rd in 1978, African champions in 1980, 2nd in 1984, 2nd in 1988. The only reason Nigerian football remained obscure outside Africa was that the country did not reach World Cup finals yet – but that was to change soon and how!
Algeria triumphed and their victory was rather expected: Algerian football was among the best in Africa, hosts of finals usually benefited not just from massive fan support, Egypt and Cameroon did not take the finals seriously, having in mind the coming World Cup, Tunisia and Morocco did not reach the finals, and Nigeria was already beaten with big result in the group stage, so Algeria had psychological advantage at the final too. And the squad, led by already famous Madjer was more experienced and professional than the Nigerians, who had plenty of talent, but lacked professional experience. Finally, it was a revenge for 1980 final, when Nigeria won 3-0 and won the title. This time Algeria came on top and triumphed for the first time as African champion.