Gabon celebrates as team wins in Africa Cup arrival

By Peter Auf der Heyde Jan 24, 2012, 11:27 GMT

Libreville, Gabon - The fans celebrated until the early morning of Tuesday after the home team delivered as the Africa Cup of Nations finally got underway in Gabon as well.

Bars in the capital of Libreville that normally close at 10 remained opened well past midnight, doing brisk trade from exuberant football fans delighting in Gabon's 2-0 victory against Niger.

Before Monday, the tournament was pretty much a low-key affair in the country that is staging the showpiece of African football for the first time.

The first two days of play took place at co-hosts Equatorial Guinea and there was naturally little excitement in Gabon although vendors were selling Gabonese flags and more people than usual were walking around in football jerseys.

All of that changed on Monday night when first-half goals by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Stephane Nguema gave the Panthers a convincing 2-0 victory in their opener.

Gabon's Franco-German coach Gernot Rohr said that in a way he was happy that the side had not won by a greater margin.

'We won 2-0 and I am fairly satisfied that we did not win by three or four goals. If that had been the case everybody would have thought we would become champions,' Rohr said.

'We know that the people become euphoric very quickly. We as a team do not become like that. It is important that we remain rooted to the ground.

'It is good that the result was not too high and anybody who knows me, knows that I will make sure that the team does not become crazy.'

It seems doubtful though, that the tens of thousands who took to the streets of Libreville after the game would agree with him.

Local football fan Bonas Ngafula, who watched the game with his family in front of a large-screen television before hitting the streets, summed up the expectations.

'At least the quarter-finals and then anything can happen,' he said.

But Ngafula also said it was more important that the team had given the nation some hope. Although natural resources, including oil, have made the country into one of the richest on the continent, the large majority of the population remains poor.

'We have something to be happy about. The team played well and we can all get behind the team. They won for us,' Ngafula said.

Celebration was certainly on the fans' mind as many ticket holders decided not to hang around for the second game even though it was included in their ticket price.

Barely 6,000 people remained in the 40,000-seater stadium, which had been sold out for the Gabon match, to watch Tunisia beat Morocco 2-1.

'The people would much rather celebrate with other fans than sit and watch a second game,' Ngafula said.

Africa's ruling football body CAF, which the last time around in Angola in 2010 had to deal with a deadly attack on the Togolese team bus that left three people dead and caused the team to withdraw from the competition even before it started, is also satisfied with the way things have started off.

'Everything has been running smoothly, there have been no major problems,' CAF spokesman Habuba Suleiman said.