BY ISLAM SABULINO.
Equatorial Guinea. (News Of The South) – Tunisia thought they have made it to the last four of the Orange 2015 Afcon, but alas that turned out to be a day dreaming experience as the referee controversially awarded the host a spot kick right on the stroke of the normal time to send the match into dreaded extra-time.
The penalty came in the injury time after Ali Maaloul was ruthlessly ruled to have infringed Ivan Bolado in the box leaving Javier Balboa netting from the resultant spot kick.The match went into extra-time where Balboa scored again and this time from a fantastic free-kick 25 yards away.
In the dying stages of extra-time ugly scenes were noticed as both sets of players and officials in fracas and it needed the intervention of security to calm the storm as some home fans ran onto the pitch for celebration.
Tunisia players followed the referee right to the tunnel trying to understand the decision of awarding the penalty, but to no avail.
The host who are ranked 118th in the world were only part of this years’ tournament on the virtue of being the host having replaced Morocco following Ebola crisis.
Nevertheless, they made it out of Group A following a famous 2-0 win over Gabon to reach their second quarter-final.Tunisia topped their group comprising of DR Congo, Cape Verde and Zambia and were booming with confidence ahead of yesterday’s game.
Equatorial Guinea now awaits the winnner between Ghana and the stigmatised Guinea in their first ever Cup of Nations semi-final match on Thursday night.
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