Guinea defeated equatorial guinea 1-0 at alassane ouattara olympic stadium on sunday to put an end to the giant-killing run of the africa cup of nations and advance to the quarterfinals. After equatorial guinea was down to ten men in the second half, mohamed bayo’s superb glancing header in the eighth minute of stoppage time proved to be the difference. Guinea came to an end to a long stretch of losing in the afcon knockout stages, but took their time and rode their luck to win. It came after a period of probing football at the end of the game, and bayo expertly flicked into the net from a good cross on the right by full back ibrahim diakité, who was barely visible from the goalkeeper. Guinea had brought on the bundesliga pair of naby keita and serhou guirassy to give their attack a boost, and they slowly took over in the final stages, setting up many opportunities. Guinea had a man advantage from the 55th minute when equatorial guinea’s leading holding midfielder federico bikoro was sent off for a high-foot tackle on bayo that was dangerous.
Equatorial guinea should have gone ahead just minutes earlier, however, when iban salvador was clipped from behind in the penalty area by wing-back sekou sylla. Emilio nsue, the tournament’s top scorer with five goals, hit his attempt against the upright, with the goalkeeper taking the other way. Equatorial guinea then tried to waste time and force the game to an extra 30 minutes and post-match penalties. Guinea, however, came out victorious, finishing ahead of the hosts ivory coast and nigeria in group a and shocking the ivorians 4-0. Guinea had the best chance of a poor first half when they broke on the counter-attack after defending a corner and running toward the opposing goal, but then inexplicably hesitated and allowed full back basilio ndong to steam across from the left and make a convincing tackle. In san pedro, guinea will face the winner of the later game between the democratic republic of congo and egypt on sunday
