Perhaps in knockout football, nothing ever matters apart from the result. You go through, you go out, the rest is noise. But that is especially true when the tie in question is the biggest rivalry in modern sub-Saharan African football. It was not the prettiest game, but it was never going to be, particularly given a pitch slippery with dew (and perhaps the 25 minutes of watering it took before kick-off).
Not many people are going to be watching the full 90 minutes back with childish wonder. But it doesn’t matter. Nigeria go on to face Angola in the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations; Cameroon go home.
