Burkina Faso coach Paul Put said eliminating Zambia and holding Nigeria has hardened them for their semifinal clash against Ghana.
Burkina Faso booked their debut semifinal place after beating Togo 1-0 in the 105th minute of extra time at Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit on Sunday.
They face four-time champions Ghana at the same venue which is now officially Burkina Faso’s home ground until the last match is played there on Wednesday February 6.
“We know Ghana is a very big team but we have played Nigeria, we have played Zambia in football anything is possible. You never know,” Paul said in a post-match interview at Mbombela on Sunday after beating Togo 1-0 in their quarterfinal match.
Burkina Faso drew 0-0 with Zambia in their final Group C match to see the latter eliminated after finishing on three points.
Meanwhile, Group C’s interest at the Africa Cup remains with both Nigeria and Burkina Faso still in the competition.
Nigeria, who drew 1-1 with Burkina Faso in their opening Group C game on January 21, eliminated Cote d’Ivoire 2-1 in their big quarterfinal clash earlier on in the day up in Rustenburg.
Good luck Burkina Faso wish all the best; Zambia was not good enough to defend that trophy in the first place….I’m sure that you will play even better once you move to a better stadium!!
Burkina Faso are playing good, and its not because Zambia played bad.
Its seems you don’t know how to analyze soccer. If you win it does not mean that you played better. Zambia outplayed Burkina Faso. We dominated the game against Burkina Faso and had more chances of scoring and ball possession. I have no doubt that Zambia would have defended the cup but the lack of good strikers is what killed us. We outplayed Nigeria and had better chances. We had more ball possession than anyone in group C. I agree with Kalu that no team was superior than us at this tournament. I understand why the coach was featuring Chris Katongo because the coach knew that we did not have strikers and Chris Katongo was the only who could have done something. Those chances Mbesuma wasted, l am sure Chris Katongo would have scored.
Sour grapes ba Jay Jay, we know who you are and trying to get Great Kalu. You will NEVER reach GK’s class and level my friend, so hang your flat balls and shut up embecile.
Any good football analyst will always tell you that you can outplay your opponents and maintain 90% ball possession over your opponents BUT at the end of the day what counts is goals and everything else accounts for nothing especially at an international tournament.
Best wishes B/Faso.
From Chipolopolo soccer-faaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
Viva Group C. The so-called group of death – group D is no more. Everyone is gone.
goal goal z go
go guys..go..all the best!!
JAY JAY,
Let me challenge you that Zambia played better than B/Faso especially the GoalKeeper, Defenders and Our midfield was good. The problem was with strikers. Our Strikers were failing to score and these chaps really disgraced the nation.
This is another oxymoron statement; don’t challenge people with lame excuses!!
Genious
I lke the way you have analysed Soccer. These vampires who are just busy critising the Chipolopolo. It’s time these useless fans needed to let Herve Renard make his own team rather than interferring. Too many cooks spoil the broth. Our Team had many useless advisors who just talks anyhow
So Group C was the group of DEATH in that they are the only two teams from a group to go through to the semi-finals.
So group C was the toughest ?Or is it the sand?Surely two teams in the semis from the same group will vindicate Renard!Good luck boys next month against Lesotho in Maseru in the world cup qualifier.Dont underrate them.Lesotho is sturbon at home.We need all the big guns and good preparations and a good game plan plus tactics.Good luck.GOD BLESS ZAMBIA.
While we have all accepted the apologies from the national team, through the coach, it is important that some restructuring is done and Renahrd for once should listen to suggestions. There is need to infuse some more new talent, especially upfront among strikers and retire some players who are clearly fringe players. Stephen Keshi and Ngeria have shown that using young, energetic and enthusiastic players who want to prove a point is no match to aging stars like Drogba. We beat Ivory Coast last year, but it took penalties, even though we had outplayed them, Nigeria beat them in regulation time with largely young players, lets re-inforce the striking force!!!
Imwe Sansamukeni, Renard should listen to suggestions from whom? soccer fans? The problem is that everyone in Zambia is a soccer expert. retire some players and infuse new players from where? there is no new talent available. if you watch our local league, you can see how weak we are. both power dynamos and zanaco have embarrassingly lost their matches over the weekend to Zimbabwean opposition. let the coaches do their job with the little resources we have. If you are not happy with a coach, then replace him/her but do not micro-manage.
Nigeria and Bukina thru to the semis show how tough group c was…the good news is also that I-coast is out!!… We need to qualify to the world cup.. this is the next logical achievement for Zambia.
ba bukinave ubuloshi see bbc bukinafaso witchdoctors face.
Burkina Faso is probably one of the least known countries in Africa but their impact on the ongoing AFCON tournament has kept people talking.
The Burkina team have shown resilience, determination and have refused to be intimidated by the so-called big guns of African football and teams like Zambia have a lot to learn from them. All the best to Burkina and GO, GO and GO for it!
Least known country in Africa? The country of Thomas Sankara formely known as Upper Volta? Speak for yourself my Dear Fellow Distant Drums.
@Sasha, Please, why do you choose to misquote me, in my posting I clearly included the word ‘probably’ and for reasons best known to yourself you decided to omit it in your ‘clever’ response. Could this be one of the reasons why Kabimba wants to abolish this confusing English language?
chipolopolo played badly that is why it failed to beat 10 against 11players ethopians who outplayed us for sake of sympathy zambians are praising the team that it played wel and yet its out the fact of the matter is zambia did not play wel hence its out of the programe but am here to praise individuals for desplaying goodperformance and i cant fail to comment on our hero kennedy.
BF are doing a ‘zambia’ this year at AFCON.
After an early ejection like this from the Africa cup of Nations I have seen and read knee- jerk reactions from fellow Zambian fans some crying for the blood of the coach, players or the FAZ president. What I find very apparent is that most of these critics are mere arm-chair critics who only started supporting the Zambia National Team either after the Gabonese disaster or after they won the Africa Cup last year. Before these events happened these so called fans would care less if the team was involved in an international game. All these are what we call fair weather fans who only selela kwakaba. It would help if fans would concentrate on watching local games (than still being under the colonial grip of concentrating watching European teams) so that they can offer concrete suggestions…
to the coach. Please don’t just say we need to go back to the drawing board, Mayuka this and that, or our strike force is blunt. You need to specify the name of the strikers who you have in mind whether they are in Solwezi or elsewhere so that the coach can evaluate them. The coach is not able to attend all the games taking place in our country so fans have a duty to make suggestions if they notice strikers with the caliber of our departed heroes like the late Godfrey Ucar Chitalu/Alex Chola or Kelvin Mutale who had the capacity to tear down any kind of defence. If your job is just to criticize or only interested in the team when they win you have no business of taking any interest in this game which by design must have a winner and a loser. I personally have supported the KK eleven…
since 1979 and have had many heartbreaks before but we have a bigger task at hand – to qualify to the World Cup for the first time and comments that do not offer concrete solutions will not help take our football to the next level. So all you so called fans knock it off to put it mildly or just STFU!
‘Burkina Faso booked their debut semi-final place after beating Togo 1-0 ……’ That statement is wrong. This is the second time Burkina Faso have reached a semi-final. The first time they did it was in 1998 when they hosted the African Cup of Nations. By the way, the country is a dictatorship under Blaise Compaore who assassinated his then boss Thomas Sankara.
All the best Burkina Faso…u’re next to re-write the history of the AFCON !