AFCON2013 South Africa Group Stages Over, Quarter Finalists, Fixtures

Goodbye Beautiful Ethiopian girls at AFCON supporting their team
PIC FROM: JOYFM FACEBOOK

It has been quite an eventful past couple weeks at the AFCON 2013 South Africa. We started off with 16 teams now 8 have been eliminated and we move on to the next round of matches the Knockout stages, the business end of the tournament, the quarter finals. Over the past couple of weeks we saw a boring start to the AFCON with many matches ending in draws, but that did not last very long because by the second group games teams like South Africa, Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso improved their game and started scoring those crucial goals and with those goals the AFCON got more interesting. Teams Like Cape Verde who only have about 500 000 people in their entire country did well and impressed many people, the girls did not want Cape Verde to leave as they were enjoying the “eye candy” according to some twitter updates I read earlier these past couple of weeks. Teams like Angola continued to under-perform during this tournament just as they did in previous AFCON’s.

Which Teams Were Eliminated from the AFCON 2013 South Africa?

All of the Northern African teams were eliminated during the first round during the group stages, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia are all out. Algeria had a bad tournament and failed to pull off a single victory or to score in the first two matches, they had a 2 goal lead late in the second half but managed to screw up and concede to late goals from Ivory Coast. Morocco played well but not well enough, they played 3 draws which was not good enough to secure a quarter final spot. Morocco tried to win the last match against the lowest ranked side in their group South Africa but it was not to be as the hosts  managed to come back twice in the game to secure a draw and to end top of their group. Tunisia failed to qualify even after being given two penalties in their final match against Togo, where the ref was giving most of the decisions to their side, they only managed to get one penalty in the back of the net and their draw was not enough to see them through to the next round.

The Upset of this tournament so far is the group stages Knockout of Zambia the defending champions who got knocked out when they failed to win their final match against Burkina Faso. Angola also got eliminated during the first round, their poor AFCON performance record continues. Ethiopia were also eliminated despite having thousands of vibrant fans supporting them during their matches, they started the AfCON 2013 well giving people hope but then they were trashed 4-0 by Burkina Faso and 2-0 by Nigeria to seal their AFCON first round exit. Niger are also out, it is like they never showed up for the AFCON.  DR Congo were also eliminated after staging a great come back from 2-0 down against Ghana in first match, but disappointing in their next two matches.

Which teams qualified for the AfCON Quarterfinals?

Ivory Coast were the first to qualify with a 2-1 win over Togo and a 3-0 win over Tunisia to seal their place in the quarterfinals after only two games. The host Nation South Africa qualified with two draws and a convincing win over Angola. Ghana was not playing their best football but they also qualified to the next round quite easily.  Mali is a regular in qualifying to the next round, even though they qualified they did not play very well, their coach stated that it was because most of his players were not getting game time at their teams so we should expect to see them improve as the tournament progresses. Nigeria have had a poor showing so far, this being the weakest Nigerian team I have ever seen but they managed to qualify to the next round. Togo managed to qualify to the next round as well, even though the ref was against them in their final match they pulled through. Burkina Faso sealed their place by beating Ethiopia 4-0 and getting a draw against the defending champions. The surprise qualifiers have been the 500 000 nation Cape Verde who qualified by beating Angola during their last group match.

Quarterfinal Fixtures

Ghana vs Cape Verde, Saturday Feb 2, Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, 17:00

South Africa vs Mali, Saturday Feb 2, Moses Mabhida Stadium, 20:30

Ivory Coast vs Nigeria, Sunday Feb 3, Royal Bafokeng Stadium, 17:00

Burkina Faso vs Togo, Sunday Feb 3, Mbombela Stadium, 20:30

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The AFCON Has Officially Begun, Still Waiting For The First Goal

Soccer City Afcon 2013
photo by Agencia Brasil

Today the AFCON officially started with the president of South Africa welcoming all the 5 African nations to South Africa and opening the games. It was a rainy day in Johannesburg much like it’s been raining in many areas throughout the country. There was a bit of doubt as to whether the National Stadium/ Soccer City was going to be able to handle opening ceremony plus the two matches between South Africa vs Cape Verde and Morocco vs Angola.  At the end of the day the opening ceremony and the two matches were hosted successfully there.

The Opening Match: South Africa vs Cape Verde

This was a highly anticipated match in South Africa which was attended by 88 000 fans with their vuvuzelas, the South Africans wanting the host nation to start off the competition with a win to make progressing to the next stage easier but it was not to be as the match ended in a goalless draw. It was a boring and disappointing match I hope these two teams play much more entertaining football in their next matches and that they score some goals.

The Second Group A Match: Morocco vs Angola

After the goalless draw between the host nation Bafana Bafana vs Cape Verde, we were hoping to see some goals seeming as any team which won this match would be placed at the top of the group and have an advantage going into the next match. Unfortunately this match also ended in a goalless draw which means there are still zero goals in the 2013 AFCON after two matches, let’s hope the goals will come soon in these next few matches, the last thing we want is a boring low scoring AFCON. To be fair though Morocco were the better team during this game but they failed to convert their opportunities up front.

This was only day 1 and the nerves may have gotten to the players, let us hope as they get used to the competition and the pressure the nerves will settle and we will start seeing some goals.

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You Are Who You Believe You Are – You Are Who You Surround Yourself With

You Are Who You Believe You Are

It is amazing how much one can achieve just by believing that they can do something. It is important to believe in your capabilities just as it is important for those people around you to be positive people who believe in you, people who believe that you can achieve whatever you put effort into achieving.

I was reading Mind Powers: How to Use and Control Your Unlimited Potential and I have to say that reading that book was quite eye opening, I learned that quite a lot could be achieved by tapping into your brain whether it was becoming more successful, seeing the world or yourself in a more positive light or even healing yourself from illness just by believing you will get better and that you are healthy.

Stay Away From Negative People

Reading the book further confirmed to me the importance of staying away from negative influences, people who bring you down, people who want you to fail and believe you are good for nothing. Staying away from these negative people is the first step to becoming positive and successful because they make you believe you are good for nothing, and by believing it, you never live up to your full potential. So to start thinking positively getting away from negative influencers can be a great help.

Negative Parents

Sometimes these negative influencers could be your own parents, who constantly remind you of how useless you are and that you can never amount to anything. If that is the case there are a number of ways to go about changing their influence on you, one way is to confront them and tell them that their actions and behaviour are affecting you negatively and that putting you down only serves as a negative. Tell them that instead of putting you down they should be encouraging you to chase after your dreams. If that fails maybe moving away from your parents is your best option, this is if you are old enough to move away from home to start a life away from your negative influencers.

Negative Teachers

Some people are let down by their teachers, the people who are supposed to guide us, the people who mould us into what we are from the moment we start our education. Usually with teacher’s first impressions count and when a student does not do well in a test, the student usually starts disliking the subject or school instead of working harder, because most teachers give up on the students with the lower to average marks and pay more attention to the higher achievers (IMO).

 I had this very same problem, when I was in the 9^th and 10^th grades of high school I used to do very well in all my subjects except in the languages, I did not understand why I was doing so badly in the languages so I just thought I was a math and science kind of student, my English teacher did not have much confidence in me and soon I had no confidence in myself I ended up ignoring the language subjects altogether which made sure my marks never improved but they never decreased either. I was always a c student in languages.

However this started to change in the 11^th grade with a change of teacher, this teacher seemed to care a lot about my progress and it was obvious that the teacher believed I could get higher marks than I was currently getting if I put more effort into it. The teacher always gave me a hard time and I was irritated at the time because I always got in trouble with her, she always seemed concerned. Later upon reviewing the 11^th grade I realised that teacher really cared and in turn I started caring about my work as well which led to and increased interest in the subject especially in poetry and short stories. My marks increased a little I progressed from a C student to a B+ student.

Finally in the 12^th grade I made the conscious decision that I was going to become an A student, my changed mindset   coupled with the fact that I had a great English teacher that I was fond of made it easy for me to attain my goal of getting that A. At first I was surprised at the results I was getting, the teacher had confidence in me and that further boosted my own self confidence. I also started reading a lot more which helped me improve my language skills.

I believe that most teachers start out loving their jobs thinking they will be appreciated by students, but most students suck and do not appreciate their teachers, this lack of appreciation and the low salaries teachers earn  leads to teachers hating their jobs and not being the most positive influencers. Only teacher’s pets and top students get the right kind of attention and encouragement/positive reinforcement from teachers to get the best out of their education. Teachers reward interested students, they like it when students ask them questions and show interest in their subject, that is the reason they became teachers in the first place. So to get the best out of school the best thing to do is start showing interest and ask questions, if that does not change, the student teacher relationship then maybe a change of teacher could do you some good. You want to be taught by someone who sees potential in you and helps you reach your full potential, not someone who sees you as good for nothing and a waste of space.

Image By: h.koppdelaney

Negative Friends

Perhaps this is something that could hold you back the most, because your friends are a representation of who you are. We usually hang out with likeminded people or so I would like to think. Hanging out with the wrong type of friends could be disastrous; many people have been led to a life of drugs and crime/gangs because of their friends.

One of my favourite shows at the moment is Suits, one of the main characters Mike Ross is a genius who was kicked out of university for helping others cheat of their tests. The reason he got into trouble most of the time was because of his friend Trevor. He was always helping Trevor out in some sort of illegal scheme and he always seemed to be affected by the negative consequences of those actions. In Trevor’s latest scheme, Mike was to help him sell a suitcase full of weed but what Trevor did not tell Mike is that he overheard the drug dealers he was dealing with saying that the deal could be a set up and that whoever was caught with the weed would spend a long time in prison.  Had it not been for the fact that Mike was very smart; he would have been caught and taken yet another fall for his friend Trevor.

Old friends from back when you were doing not so well and friends like Trevor are usually not good friends especially if they are still in the same messed up situation you left them in. They do not like to see others progress, they always want to bring you back down instead of trying to improve themselves.  Stay away from such negative influencers for they are not true friends, they are like a disease you need to be cured of.

Believing is a step towards being

Imagine your dream life, believe that it is attainable and work towards achieving each goal towards that dream and slowly but surely your dreams will come true. Do not let negative influencers into your life, surround yourself with what is positive and you will in turn become a positive person with self belief powering your motor. 

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