I got to spend the evening at the National Stadium, watching Nigeria defeat Burkina Faso 1-0 in a flair filled tournament finale. In the end, the hot streak Nigeria carried into the Finals outhustled the player of the tournament, Burkina Faso's Jonathan Pitroipa. While Pitroipa spent the evening making Nigeria's defense look silly, nothing on the attacking front for Burkina Faso fell into place. All it took was an act of brilliance by Nigeria's Sunday Mbah, a beautiful touch over a BF defender followed by a finish to the far corner, to turn the tide in Nigeria's favor.
Considering that Nigerians make up a large portion of Johannesburg's foreign population, the city's migrant neighborhoods of Hillbrow and Yeoville did not go to sleep last night. Even by the time I got back to my apartment in Parktown from the stadium at 1am I could still hear the loud humming of vuvuzelas eminating from Hillbrow a few blocks away.
The best thing about the evening was that I was not rooting for Nigeria or Burkina Faso but rather for soccer and AFCON 2013 as a whole. Standing among 95,000 screaming fans last night at the National Stadium was an amazing sight to behold.
More pics to come...
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