•Nsue: Defender teaching strikers how to score goals at AFCON
Spain third-tier side Intercity defender Emilio Nsue is topping the scorers chart at the 2023 AFCON in stunning fashion. The Equatorial Guinea captain, who plays as a striker for his country, is the rave of an entire continent, writes PETER AKINBO
Going into the 34th Africa Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast, fans expectations were high. Fuelled by the AFCON’s storied past, the expectations from followers of the continent’s showpiece football event wasn’t unusual.
Never devoid of drama in previous editions — among them legendary underdogs tales — the football world have been served plenty by the continent’s elite footballers.
The likes of Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, Mozambique and Namibia played the spoilers role, hitting the big boys where it hurts most and ensuring they didn’t advance or in precarious positions; Ghana and Algeria’s misery in the competition continued, while five coaches, unsurprisingly, have left their roles after poor outings — Ivory Coast’s Jean-Louis Gasset, Ghana’s Chris Hughton, Djamel Belmadi of Algeria, Tom Saintfiet (Gambia) and Adel Amrouche (Tanzania).
The likes of Nigeria’s Victor Osimhen, the reigning CAF Player of The Year; Guinea’s Serhou Guirassy, Egypt’s Mohamed Salah and Senegal’s Sadio Mane, who were all touted to light up the tournament with goals, have taken the backseat.
Instead, it’s the 34-year-old Intercity defender, Emilio Nsue, who plays as a striker for Equatorial Guinea that has won the hearts of followers of the game following his goal-scoring form in Ivory Coast.
A strong, physical player, he usually plays at right-back in defence for Intercity, though he can also play on the wings.
For Intercity, he has featured in a litany of roles since the 2023/24 campaign got underway — right-back, right-wing and centre-forward. However, he has found a spark in his No.9 role for Equatorial Guinea and his leadership and scoring prowess offer a beacon of hope for a nation with just 1.7million population hungry for continental glory.
The Nzalang Nacional captain has been in scintillating form playing as a striker in Ivory Coast and has scored five goals so far in three group stage games, making him the top scorer at the tournament.
In their second group game against Guinea-Bissau, he scored a hat-trick, becoming the first player in 16 years to net thrice in a game at the AFCON and the only hat-trick hero at this edition. He is also the oldest player to achieve such a feat in the tournament’s history.
He also scored twice in the shock 4-0 humiliation of hosts Ivory Coast as the EquatoGuineans topped Group A to set up a round of 16 clash with Guinea.
For a man who plays his club football in the Primera Federacion, Spain’s third-tier league, not many would have staked a bet on Nsue becoming one of the star attractions in Ivory Coast.
After his brace plus two other goals sent the hosts on the brink of elimination on Monday, Nsue said, “Sometimes this happens in football. … We shot the ball four or five times, we scored four. So, it’s not a real game.
“They tried their best. We tried our best. But we showed once again that as a group we’re very strong. We fight for each other. We help each other. We don’t have any superstar. But as a team, we are one of the strongest in Africa.”
It’s only the fourth time Equatorial Guinea, a small country on the west coast of Africa, is participating in the Africa Cup.
“We don’t even believe it. This for us is history for our country, for our people,” said Nsue. “It’s a dream, a big dream.”
Nsue’s five goals are the most by any player in the group stage since 1970, when Laurent Pokou scored seven in Sudan.
Nsue said he “will fight” to finish as the tournament top-scorer, but he’s putting the team’s success above his own.
“In football, you know, sometimes they stop you, sometimes not,” Nsue said. “Now I am in a very good moment, just to keep trying, to keep going. But, for me, the most important thing is that my national team keep winning games and all our people are proud of us.
“We made history and we will try to keep making history.”
He puts Equatorial Guinea’s success down to the tight-knit group forged by Juan Michá, who was the assistant coach and guided the country’s youth teams before taking over as coach of the seniors.
“We are brothers, seven, eight years playing together. We know each other very well,” Nsue told The Associated Press. “We are friends and I think when we go to the pitch, you can feel it. We run for each other. We are a family. We try to help each other. We give positive vibes. I think this is the key.”
Nsue was born in Mallorca on the Balearic Islands in Spain in 1989. His mother is a Spaniard while his father is an EquatoGuinean born in Ebebiyín, a town in the Central African country.
He grew up in Palma, and his football talents became apparent at an early age when RCD Mallorca, the local club, quickly snapped him up. He passed through the club’s youth system and represented Spain in several youth categories as an attacker.
Nsue began his career further up the field and was always attack-minded, even when asked to play in defence. He played at youth level for Spain before switching to the country of his father in 2013.
He won the 2009 UEFA U-19 championship with Spain. Two years later, he was also a member of the Spain squad that won the 2011 U-21 UEFA championship, alongside players like Thiago Alcantara, Juan Mata, David de Gea, Ander Herrera and Javi Martinez.
In 2012, Equatorial Guinea hosted their first-ever AFCON along with Gabon, and the country reached out to Nsue to represent them. He rejected the invitation, eyeing a place on the Spanish team for the 2012 Olympics in London.
However, he did not make the Spanish team and began to have a rethink of his senior international future.
“I played for Spain at every youth level. We won the UEFA U-21 Championship in 2011, and the Olympic Games came the next year. There were 30 people on the list, and I wasn’t on it. After that, I decided I wanted a new experience,” he said.
In 2013, he switched his allegiance to Equatorial Guinea and debuted for the country in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers against Cape Verde and Nsue scored a hat-trick in a 4-3 win.
However, CAF said his naturalisation paperwork was completed incorrectly, and the match was forfeited.
“I haven’t forgotten those goals, and nor has the country. For CAF and FIFA, well, they don’t count. I gave my papers in very quickly, and the federation needed more time to do everything,” he said.
“I said I was eager to play, they said ‘Yes, give us the papers, quick.’ It was 50 per cent my fault and 50 per cent theirs.”
In 2019, Nsue scored twice in a friendly match against Saudi Arabia, surpassing Juvenal Edjogo-Owono, who scored nine as Equatorial Guinea’s all-time goalscorer. He has already more than doubled the record number of goals since then — with 22 goals.
The best the EquatoGuineans have achieved at an AFCON tournament was fourth place in 2015, where Nsue, who turns 35 in September, managed just one goal, with the top scorer award then won by five players who scored three goals each, which he has already achieved in just a game.
The leading scorer’s performance at the AFCON has been nothing short of remarkable. He has defied age and expectations, rewriting his own AFCON narrative, one electrifying goal at a time. He is now four goals ahead of Osimhen, five ahead of Africa’s top scorer in Europe Guirassy, three ahead of Salah and four ahead of Mane.
His closest rivals are Algeria’s Baghdad Bounedjah and Egypt’s Mostafa Mohamed, who are on three goals each after also playing three games. However, Algeria have been knocked out of the tournament after finishing last in Group D and so he has no more worries from Bounedjah.
The spotlight now shines bright on Nsue as the tournament enters its knockout stages where it is now win or go home for every nation at the AFCON.
Nsue’s heroics will surely enter the history books as one of the Cinderella stories of the AFCON.
