The most memorable moments in Africa Cup of Nations history

By SABC Sport
5th January 2024

The 2023 Africa Cup of Nations kicks off on January 13 - and has treated the continent to many special moments over the years.

Here, SABC Sport looks at five of the most memorable moments from the tournament’s archives.

The longest AFCON penalty shootouts ever

The final of the 1992 Africa Cup of Nations between Ivory Coast and Ghana still shares the record for the longest penalty shootout in the history of the competition.

Played at the Stade de l'Amitie in Dakar, the match also holds the distinction of being the first time that every player on the field took a penalty in a major international final.

After both teams failed to get on the scoreboard in regulation and extra time, it was Ivory Coast who eventually came out on top, winning the penalty shootout 11-10 after 24 energy-sapping shots.

Incredibly, the West African nation would repeat the feat in the quarter-finals of the 2006 tournament against Cameroon, winning 12-11 after another 24-shot battle.

The 2006 shootout was also notable for featuring African legends Samuel Eto'o and Didier Drogba going head-to-head.

It was Eto'o - taking his second shot in the shootout - who missed for Cameroon, allowing Drogba to step up for his second effort and send Cote d'Ivoire into the semis.

Zambia's historic run to the 1994 final

Why is Zambia's effort in making it to the 1994 African Cup of Nations final remembered just as much - if not more - than Nigeria's victory that same year?

To understand that, you have to cast your mind back to what happened just under a year earlier when - in one of the darkest days in the history of African football - an aircraft crashed into the ocean while carrying most of the Zambia national football team to a World Cup Qualifier against Senegal in Dakar, killing everyone on board.

Zambia lost almost its entire national squad in an instant, but somehow managed to rally and rebuild to field a highly-competitive team during the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations in Tunisia.

With an entire nation cheering them on, Zambia secured impressive wins over Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone in the group stages, before going on to defeat Senegal and Mali in the quarter-finals and semi-finals respectively.

While they ultimately came off second best to a red-hot Nigeria side in the final, their performance in Tunisia will long be remembered by all African football fans who witnessed it.

Zambia stun star-studded Ivory Coast in 2012

Speaking of Zambia, while they didn't manage to win the trophy in 1994, their first win would finally arrive after 18 years in circumstances almost every bit as dramatic and unlikely.

The match took place at the Stade d'Angondjé in Libreville, Gabon, which just happened to be near the spot where most of the Zambian team died when their plane crashed in 1993.

The power of those lingering memories would ultimately drive the Zambian team to an audacious victory over an Ivory Coast side brimming with world-class talent, including Didier Drogba, Yaya and Kolo Toure, and Gervinho.

After Drogba missed a penalty shortly before full-time that would have handed his nation the victory, it was left to another dramatic penalty shootout to decide the destination of the trophy, with Zambia ultimately emerging 8-7 winners to finally secure an AFCON title after two previous finals losses.

Algeria win amid political turmoil

The Africa Cup of Nations is no stranger to emotional victories, and another such triumph occurred when Algeria defied the odds to lift the trophy in 2019.

What helped make their win so significant were the social and political conditions the team and its players were facing in 2019, as Algeria had just overthrown its long-standing and reclusive president Abdelaziz Bouteflika following widespread outrage over his decision to run for a fifth term.

Even as the nation emerged from their former president's oppressive rule, having united for some of the largest demonstrations the country had ever seen, its football heroes were tasked with doing battle for the AFCON trophy in Egypt.

As Algerian fans cheered on a team that was "reborn alongside the Hirak," the name given to the protest movement that led to Bouteflika's downfall, Algeria defeated Ivory Coast (quarters), Nigeria (semis) and finalists Tunisia to lift only the second AFCON trophy in their history - a perfectly-timed victory that helped usher in a new era for the nation in more ways than one.

Bafana Bafana's first - and only - victory in 1996

Algeria's victory in 2019 was more than a little reminiscent of Bafana Bafana's memorable triumph on home soil over 20 years earlier.

Like their North African neighbours, South Africa had also recently undergone a dramatic transformation with the democratic election of President Nelson Mandela to the highest office in the land, bringing to an end the apartheid era and the long period of sporting isolation that had gone along with it.

The 1996 tournament was South Africa's first since that period of isolation, having failed to qualify in 1994, and expectations were high after the nation had watched the mighty Springboks lift the Rugby World Cup at Ellis Park a year earlier.

With inspirational coach Clive Barker at the helm, and players like Lucas Radebe, John Mosheou, Eric Tinkler, Mark Williams and Doctor Khumalo leading the way, Bafana Bafana stunned their African rivals to secure a famous victory.

Coming through a tough group that included Cameroon and Egypt was an amazing effort in itself, but a 2-1 quarter-final victory over Algeria was followed by a 3-0 result against Ghana in the semis, setting the stage for a 2-0 victory over Tunisia in the final that sent Bafana fans into dreamland.

South Africa have not won AFCON since but their impressive coach Hugo Broos believes this year's tournament presents his players with the "opportunity of a lifetime" to show what they can do on Africa's biggest stage.