AFCON 1996: Lucas Radebe versus Tony Yeboah
Midway through the first half Radebe tried passing square across his back line, gave the ball straight to Yeboah, and watched open-mouthed as Yeboah ran through on goal. Was Tony distracted, even momentarily, by a thought of sympathy, a twinge of pity for his friend?
Tired after playing for Leeds against Reading, Phil Masinga had to be persuaded into the first match in South Africa. The next day, for Ghana, Tony Yeboah was volleying fresh.
After beating Ivory Coast in their first match, Ghana qualified serenely from their group. They beat Tunisia 2-1 and Mozambique 2-0, the latter going down to ten players just before Ghana scored their second goal.
Zaire, in the quarter-final, were tougher opponents in the sense that, by the half-hour mark, they had committed fourteen fouls to Ghana's two. They'd also met their match, in that sense. Their Jean-Claude Mukanya was stretchered off in the early stages, holding his nose, after a tussle on halfway in which he grappled with Abedi Pele and the Ghana captain appeared to headbutt him out of his way.
A couple of minutes later another Zaire player was on the floor outside their penalty area. Ntumba Danga had beaten Tony Yeboah in the air, backed into him, grappled his way behind him, then taken an elbow in the face for his troubles. Oh, Tony! It wasn't a swinging arm, but it was a defiantly jabbed one. It carried much more intent than the flailing arm his loaned in stand-in back at Leeds, Lee Chapman, had been sent off for against West Ham. But despite the protests of Zaire's goalie, Mpangi Merikani, accurately miming Yeboah's arm movements to the referee, the officials had missed it.
The referee simply called for another stretcher for another injured player. And, four minutes later, got his red card out for Nzelo Lembi, the Zaire defender, who while jumping to head a bouncing ball on the halfway line had thrust his leg out and planted his studs into Abedi Pele's back. The referee couldn't miss this one.
Zaire, obviously, couldn't believe it. And two minutes later they couldn't believe that Yeboah, of all people, had got on the end of Pele's cross. Pele had chased a high ball to the byline, where a couple of defenders thought they were shepherding it out. He crossed first time on the twist to the near post. Yeboah, who had been standing harmlessly out behind Pele on the wing, had run undetected towards that same post and as the goalie dived out to catch, Yeboah flung himself towards the ball, getting his boot to it on the bounce and drilling it low into the net.
Ghana kept a grim grip on things thereon, Yeboah almost setting up Samuel Johnson with a one-two that was fired straight at the goalie. Other efforts were confined to powerful long range volleys that our Tony seemed to have been teaching them in training. Ghana were safely through to the semi-final, with only one problem. Captain Abedi Pele rolled his ankle in the closing stages and was carried off, so after missing their defeat in the Afcon final of 1992, he was now out of the 1996 semi-final.
So was Philemon Masinga. He picked up too many bookings as South Africa followed their opening day win over Cameroon, and his tournament-opening goal, with a 1-0 win over Angola and a 1-0 defeat to Egypt. Their quarter-final was a 2-1 win over Algeria, in which Masinga's Leeds teammate Lucas Radebe was also booked. As that was his first of the tournament, the defender was clear to represent West Yorkshire in the semi-final against Ghana.
No Masinga, no Pele: this was Lucas Radebe against Tony Yeboah. In 1992, Yeboah had taken exception to not being captain when Pele missed the final, but this time he had the armband. And he had his Leeds United teammate between him and the final.
From the other angle, Radebe had the pressure of playing in front of 75,000 South Africans. And he shared the pressure Yeboah was under from playing in Europe. Alongside Radebe in defence, with impressive sideburns for a 21 year old, Mark Fish was one of the most talked about players of the tournament, destined in the coming summer to transfer from Orlando Pirates to Lazio after turning down a move to Old Trafford. But Radebe had been a Premier League player for eighteen months, and as clubmate of Ghana's most dangerous player, he was given the job of stopping him.
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