Sudan the surprise to join Africa's last eight

By Peter Auf der Heyde Jan 31, 2012, 11:58 GMT

Libreville, Gabon - The fact that Sudan qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations finals had as much to do with Nigeria's ignorance about the rules, as it had about their own strength.

The Super Eagles went into their final qualifier against Guinea thinking that they would have to top their group in order to qualify. To do that, they had to beat Guinea by two goals and thus, with the score 2-1, they pushed forward in search of another goal.

That opened the door for the Guineans and Ibrahima Traore scored an equalizer deep into injury time.

Had the Nigerians done their homework they would have realized that any victory against Guinea would see them through - in worst-case scenario as one of the best second-placed teams.

Instead, that place went to Sudan, who finished runner-up in their group behind Ghana, but ahead of Congo and Swaziland.

Arriving at the January 21-February 12 finals, which are being co-hosted by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, Sudanese football fans did not have many reasons to be optimistic.

Only once - in 1970 - when they hosted the tournament, did they win it and that was at a time when eight teams participated. Since then, they managed only thrice to qualify for the finals and each time were sent packing in the first round without registering a point.

The last time they were at the finals was in 2008, when they conceded nine goals in their three defeats and failed to score.

All of that was forgotten on Monday, when two goals by Mudather El Taib in Bata gave them a 2-1 victory against Burkina Faso - their first win at the finals since 1970.

Angola's 2-0 defeat against Ivory Coast in a match played in Malabo at the same time, enabled the Sudanese to make up a three-point, two-goal deficit on Angola and snatch a historic place in the quarter-finals.

They became the first team since Tunisia in 1996 to qualify for the round of the last eight with a squad consisting entirely of locally-based players.

But if most people were surprised, Sudanese coach Mohamed 'Mazda' Abdallah was not.

'Since playing at the finals in 2008, my players have gained a lot of experience. I think we have been improving at this tournament and even though we were not expected to qualify for the quarter-finals, I think we deserve to be there,' he told journalists.

'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.'

Abdallah, who coached the team in 2008 and took over again in 2010 when Briton Stephen Constantine resigned, said they had prepared very well for the finals.

'We regard our regional competition, the CECAFA Cup, as our main preparations and last year we finished third. We also played three friendlies against Ivory Coast, Tunisia and Gabon ahead of this tournament, so I think we were ready to come and play here.'

Sudan go into Saturday's quarter-final in Bata against Zambia as the clear underdogs, but then as their progress into the knock-out stages shows: The only certainty in football is that there is no certainty.

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