Sport
Africa Cup of Nations 2012 Update: Sudan in quarterfinals
Mazda was thrilled, saying: “We deserved to be in the quarters.
“We played well, we’ve got one of the youngest teams in the tournament, with an average age of 24.
“My side is making progress, after a defeat, a draw and now a win. This was one of our best matches.”
His Burkina Faso counterpart Paulo Duarte believed his team had a bright future.
“If I stay on as coach, we’ll make it to the World Cup, we’ve got the quality to do that,” he said.
In Bata, Mudather Eltaib scored either side of half time to bag the precious points which lifted the Sudanese level with Angola, their rivals for the runner-up spot in Group B, and crucially with a better goal difference.
To add icing to the cake Sudan also celebrated winning their first Nations Cup match since 1970, in the final.
The game was played out in a near-funereal atmosphere, with almost more players than fans at Bata’s stadium, an embarrassment for organizers CAF and co-hosts Equatorial Guinea.
