AFCON 2027: Equatorial Guinea beats Sierra Leone 1-0 in the 2nd minute and gets back on track
Equatorial Guinea defeated Sierra Leone 1-0 on Monday, September 28, 2026, at the Ahmadou Ahidjo Stadium in Yaoundé, during the second matchday of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers. A goal scored in the 2nd minute was enough for the Nzalang Nacional to secure their first three points.
Zúñiga strikes before the match even really begins
Loren Zúñiga opened the scoring in the second minute of play, reports the Vavel website. Both teams entered the match at the same point: both had lost their opening games, Equatorial Guinea 2-0 to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sierra Leone 3-2 against Zimbabwe. The lightning goal weighed on the rest of the match: the Equatoguineans managed the game, and the Leone Stars never found a way through.
Group E takes shape behind the DRC
On the same day, the DRC went to Harare and won against Zimbabwe. At the end of this second matchday, the Leopards lead Group E with six points, Equatorial Guinea moves up to second place with three units, and Sierra Leone remains at zero, according to the Journal de Kinshasa.
In other words, the race for qualification is far from over. Three points separate the leader from its two immediate pursuers, and the bulk of the campaign remains to be played. For Equatorial Guinea, beaten in their opener, this success changes the nature of what follows: they are no longer condemned to chase the pack.
Like the Central African Republic, which hosted Burkina Faso in Casablanca on the same day, Equatorial Guinea played this match outside its borders, in neighboring Cameroon. The continent still has too few stadiums approved by the Confederation of African Football, and it is the more modest teams that pay the price, deprived of their home crowd and the revenue from an international match.
The final phase of the 2027 AFCON is scheduled for June and July 2027, co-hosted by Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. For Sierra Leone, however, the toll is starting to get heavy: two matchdays, two defeats, and a deficit that will need to be made up very quickly.
This article was written in French with the help of artificial intelligence from the sources cited below, then translated from French automatically. Read the original.
