ANC: Another former MLS player outshines Junior Agogo to give Cameroon win

Alain Nkong has been journeyman his whole career (a still young one at that, only 28 years old). He was in his native Cameroon for a while, then Portugal, Spain, Portugal again, then Uruguay, and then the Colorado Rapids. While with the Rapids, he played well enough to be kept around for a couple years (5 goals in 33 appearances) but the tall attacking midfielder was finally waived heading into the 2007 season. From there he linked up with Atlante (MEX), where he helped them to the 2007 Apertura Title. And what many people forget is that Nkong is the unsung hero of the Cameroonian national team. He has struck for 9 goals in 21 games before today…

CAMEROON 1, GHANA 0 – ANC SEMIFINAL

The Indomitable Lions didn’t need Samuel Eto’o to pull them through this time as Alain Nkong did his best, striking late in the game (71st minute) after coming in the 62nd to provide Cameroon with their first shot at a African Cup of Nations championship since 2002. In doing so, the former Rapid knocked out a Ghanaian host squad that many thought were locked favorites at least for the final. As I say often, you can’t argue with Essien and Muntari in the middle, but Ghana was lacking a true target man today (yes, even Junior Agogo couldn’t pull off continued heroics). Unfortunately, the Lions – despite the victory – will be missing Reading centreback Andre Bikey after he was sent off in the 90th minute for – and listen to this – pushing over a FIRST-AID ASSISTANT while he/she was attending to his own teammate. He can’t be that dumb – please tell me it was accidental and the ref just jumped the gun????

Now we await the score of Egypt vs. Ivory Coast, which is set to kick off at 3:30 EST.