{"id":7236,"date":"2012-02-13T08:30:03","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T08:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=7236"},"modified":"2012-02-13T08:30:03","modified_gmt":"2012-02-13T08:30:03","slug":"zambia-win-africa-cup-of-nations-after-dramatic-penalty-shoot-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/13\/zambia-win-africa-cup-of-nations-after-dramatic-penalty-shoot-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia win Africa Cup of Nations after dramatic penalty shoot out"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/zambia1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/zambia1.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"zambia\" width=\"448\" height=\"305\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-7238\" \/><\/a>Zambia lifted the Africa Cup of Nations Sunday after beating the Ivory Coast 8-7 in a dramatic penalty shoot out in the final in Libreville.<br \/>\nIvory Coast captain Didier Drogba missed a penalty in the second half of regulation play as the match ended scoreless after extra time.<br \/>\nBoth teams were successful with their first seven penalties of the shoot out, including Drogba, until Manchester City\u2019s Kolo Toure saw his effort saved by Zambia goalkeeper Kennedy Mweene.<br \/>\nBut Rainford Kalaba missed the chance to clinch the game for Zambia when he shot over.<br \/>\nWith the tension almost unbearable, Arsenal\u2019s Gervinho blazed his penalty wide and this time Zambia\u2019s Stoppila Sunzu made no mistake to give his side victory.<br \/>\nIt is a fairytale triumph for Zambia, who were making an emotional return to the Gabon, 19 years after the plane crash which claimed the lives of their coach and 18 members of their squad.<br \/>\nThe Copper Bullets were winning Africa\u2019s top football prize for the first time after appearing in two previous finals.<br \/>\nBut for Chelsea\u2019s Drogba and his star-studded teammates it was a bitter disappointment after not conceding a goal in their six matches in the tournament.<br \/>\nClear cut chances were few and far between in wet conditions but Ivorian goalkeeper Boubacar Barry had to make a brilliant early save to foil Nathan Sinkala.<br \/>\nDrogba set up Yaya Toure for his side\u2019s best chance of the first half, but he fired wide.<br \/>\nIvory Coast\u2019s 72nd minute penalty came after Gervinho was pushed over, but Drogba\u2019s effort never threatened the goal.<br \/>\nHis Zambian counterpart Christopher Katongo hit the woodwork in extra time before the drama of penalties and victory for the underdogs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zambia lifted the Africa Cup of Nations Sunday after beating the Ivory Coast 8-7 in a dramatic penalty shoot out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[1530,1128,382],"class_list":["post-7236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national-news","tag-afcon","tag-soccer","tag-zambia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}