Captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams was the hero again as South Africa beat the Democratic Republic of Congon in the Africa Cup of Nations third place play-off on Saturday night (Feb. 10).<\/p>\n
After a goalless 90 minutes, the Bafana Bafana claimed the bronze medal beating Congo’s Leopards 6-5 on penalties.<\/p>\n
Both sides rang the changes following tough semi-finals.<\/p>\n
They lacked clear chances during the first half. If DR Congo looked livelier after the break but wayward finishing cost them dearly.<\/p>\n
The South AFricans also struggled to create openings until the latter stages.<\/p>\n
DR Congo’s Chancel Mbemba missed the crucial penalty kick which earned the Bafana Bafana bronze.<\/p>\n
This is the second time that DR Congo finishes fourth in an AFCON, after 1972<\/p>\n
It is the fourth time South Africa secures a spot on the podium since their 1996 win.<\/p>\n
Ivory Coast, Nigeria battle for AFCON crown<\/strong><\/p>\n The Africa Cup of Nations showpiece final will pit 3-time winners Nigeria, against host nation and two-time winners Cote d’Ivoire on Sunday night.<\/p>\n The coaches of the two teams shared their impression on Saturday.<\/p>\n The Super Eagles are unbeaten in the tournament. After a chaotic start, Cote d’Ivoire is on a incredible winning streak since a heavy defeat 4-0.<\/p>\n ” I am happy, my team happy also, we reach the final. Until now my boys are doing a fantastic job, amazing, we are happy (with) what we did until now, but we want to win this AFCON,”\u00a0Jose Peseiro, Nigeria head coach said.<\/p>\n “Winning the tournament as host country is very tough, so tomorrow we will do our very best for 90 minutes to try to achieve that, and add a third star on the orange shirt of Ivory Coast. We’ll keep working today to try to accomplish it.”<\/p>\n Nigeria already defeated the host nation 1-0 in the group stage, but Sunday’s final will be all but a closed deal.<\/p>\n South Africa will take on the Democratic Republic of Congo during the third-place playoff on Saturday at 8 PM UTC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Captain and goalkeeper Ronwen Williams was the hero again as South Africa beat the Democratic Republic of Congon in the Africa Cup of Nations third place play-off on Saturday night (Feb. 10). After a goalless 90 minutes, the Bafana Bafana claimed the bronze medal beating Congo’s Leopards 6-5 on penalties. Both sides rang the changes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10783,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"AP","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"0","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"0","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"0","show_popup_post":"0","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,326,27],"tags":[72,407,175,122],"class_list":["post-10782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-central-africa","category-sport","category-west-africa","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-ivory-coast","tag-nigeria","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}