La Cope fear 2023 It is being the Cup of surprises. With Algeria, Tunisia and Ghana out in the group stage, the host Ivory Coast qualifying due to a Moroccan favor, Egypt in the round of 16 without winning a match… a tournament open to surprises has been formed in which, for the moment, it takes the cake Equatorial Guinea and Emilio Nsue.
Akapo and Nsue, captains of Equatorial Guinea, pose for MARCA
Nzalang (Rayo) Nacional finished as leader of their group ahead of Nigeria and Ivory Coast, whom they beat 4-0 in the last match of the group stage. Among its players, the figure of Emilio Nsuea footballer for Intercity of the First RFEF and with a past in LaLiga (Mallorca) and Premier League (Middlesbrough) who, at 34 years old, is the top scorer of the competition with five goals.
Emilio Nsue talks about his great African Cup
“The truth is that I didn’t expect to score so many goals, but I did expect to make a good Cope with fear. In the previous one I wasn’t good – I didn’t score any points – and I wanted to get rid of that thorn. I have come mentally very prepared and things have turned out that way. Now, to take advantage of them and fight for the top scorer of the tournament,” he says. Emilio at MARCA before his training with the national team in Abiyn.
The captain and oldest player of the Ecuadorian national team scored against Guinea-Bisu the first hat-trick in an African Cup since 2008 He is also the oldest footballer to achieve this in the history of the African competition. Together with his “brother” Carlos Akapo, also captain of the team, he recognizes that the success of the team is being a “family.”
“We don’t have any superstars, but we have a group full of good people.”
“With our humility, teamwork, we do not have any superstar, but we have a group full of good people and we have been playing together for many years, since 2015, this is our third African Cup (2015, 2021 and 2023) and that is key for the team” say some captains who demand the African tournament in the face of European pressure so that the players are eliminated and return to their teams sooner.
“It’s as if we were complaining that the Eurocup will cover League days if it does, it makes no sense, those complaints are only in Europe. For us it is the best tournament, the one that determines who is the king of Africa and it is the best,” says Nsue who also sends a message to the CAF: “Despite all that, It is true that it should be played on dates that do not harm the clubsbecause we understand them.”
Sounding big
With the trajectory that the national team currently has (two years without losing) and with the classification for the World Cup 2026 between eyebrows – “it is the great objective that I have left to achieve”, confesses Nsue -, Nzalang has earned the right to dream big at CAN 2023.
“We dream of being champions. Of course we think about winning the Africa Cup, we have to have that ambition,” he highlights. Akapo, although captain Nsue exercises and lowers that expectation: “Although the dream is there, really our task is to go game by game and think about our round of 16 match against Guinea. We have to have our feet on the ground.” For now, They have already turned the CAN upside down.
