And then there were eight of them left!! Gabon and DR Congo concluded the quarter-final list on Wednesday 22nd January night as the 3rd edition of Orange African Nations Championship completed the group phase. With half of the original sixteen (16) heading home albeit in varying degrees of disappointment, one statistic which might cheer them up is number of goals scored after 24 matches (up to end of group stage).
CHAN 2014 has set a new record with 59 goals scored in the 24 matches played (average of 2, 45 goals per game). That beats 45 goals (1, 87 per game) scored at the 2011 CHAN finals in Sudan. During the inaugural CHAN finals held in Ivory Coast in 2009 there were only eight teams and at the end of 12 group stage games 20 goals (1, 66 goals per game) had been scored.
Group D’s final match day saw a total of nine (9) goals scored as Gabon beat Mauritania 4-2 while DR Congo triumphed 2-1 over Burundi. The 4-2 result matched the highest scoring game so far in the competition when Nigeria beat Mozambique in match day 2 in Group A. All teams except Ethiopia managed to get on the score sheet up to the end of the groups stage. Zimbabwe scored the least number of goal/s (1) while Nigeria was the highest with eight (8). Mozambique conceded the most number of goals nine (9) while the meanest defense so far has been that of Zimbabwe, which is yet to concede a goal.
When striker Moulaye Ahmed Khalil scored his and Mauritania’s second goal on 64th minute against Gabon little did he know that he was breaking the record number of goals scored in a CHAN edition (55 goals were scored in 2011 , and his strike was the 56th for CHAN 2014.
Confederation of African Football (CAF) News
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