Nigeria's national soccer team players, including John Obi Mikel (L), celebrate with the African Cup of Nations trophy after defeating Burkina Faso 1-0 in the final at Soccer City Stadium in Johannesburg Sunday. — AP JOHANNESBURG — Nigeria cemented its position as the best team at the African Nations Cup with a deserved title victory Sunday in a tournament offering further evidence that soccer in the continent has reached a fascinating crossroads. The 1-0 win over outsider Burkina Faso, which also defied the odds to reach the final with a series of performances that continually exceeded expectations, was completed with a young and inexperienced squad that surprised many seasoned observers. Coach Stephen Keshi, under intense pressure back home to lift the cup for the first time since he himself captained the last Super Eagles side to victory in 1994, ignored the critics and picked a squad in which 14 of his players were 24 or under. And if proof was needed that Keshi had got it right, the stunning cup-winning goal was scored by 24-year-old Sunday Mba, a midfielder with just a handful of caps to his name, who still plays at home in Nigeria. Nigeria's performance reflected that of the tournament's progress. The competition started slowly with 12 draws in the opening 24 group matches, before the real excitement started in the knockout stage. The eventual champion was also slow out of the blocks with draws against Burkina Faso and Zambia before two late Victor Moses penalties gave it a 2-0 win over Ethiopia. It then hit form with its 2-1 quarterfinal win over tournament favorite Ivory Coast and reached its peak with a 4-1 demolition of Mali in the semifinals. Its win in the final was measured, mature and tactically astute, with the Super Eagles surviving a desperate onslaught from the Burkinabe in the final minutes. But while the tournament was an undoubted success for Nigeria, which Keshi maintains "have only reached 80 percent" of its potential, it also represented something of a triumph for a number of the continent's middle-ranking or emerging nations. As Keshi said earlier in the tournament: "You can no longer differentiate so much between which teams are better. I think this is wonderful for African football. Burkina Faso led the way for the emerging teams, a country that before this tournament had never won a Nations Cup finals match on foreign soil and had gone 17 matches without a victory since they reached the semifinals at home in 1998. Others followed suit, including tiny Cape Verde on its finals debut and a spirited Ethiopia, who did not look out of place in the tournament despite a 31-year absence. Also impressing were first-time quarterfinalists Togo and Mali, who lifted spirits in the impoverished and conflict-ridden country by finishing with the bronze medal for the second successive tournament. Naturally there were failures too. Pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast flattered to deceive by becoming the first team to qualify for the quarterfinals with a match to spare, before suffering an upset in Rustenburg when Mba scored his first superb goal of the tournament. Champion Zambia may have exited the tournament unbeaten but it failed to repeat last year's fairytale victory with draws in its group games against Ethiopia, Nigeria and Burkina Faso not enough to see it advance to the knockout stage. Ghana was also eliminated, technically at least, without losing a game. The Black Stars finished fourth again, while host South Africa struggled to impress. Now that the finals are over, African attention switches to World Cup qualifiers with next year's Finals in Brazil looming on the horizon. On the evidence of the last three weeks, Africa appears no closer to winning a World Cup than it did when Cameroon reached the quarterfinals in 1990 or when Ghana repeated the feat at the 2010 Finals in South Africa. — Reuters
