AFCON: The Ten Greatest Goal-scorers of all Time
Africa’s finest stars have appeared at Africa’s greatest tournament with so many beautiful moments for fans over the years. Goals are the finest highlights of any football match and some of the greatest goals have been witnessed at the African Cup of Nations, AFCON.
Here are the five greatest goalscorers to have ever laced their boots at the greatest football competitions on the black continent.
Samuel Eto’o Fils, 18 goals
It is very fitting that the most decorated African player of
all time, having won the African Player of the Year award a record four times,
would also be the greatest AFCON goalscorer in history.
It would not surprise many who had seen the Cameroonian bang
in the goals for Barcelona, Inter Milan, Chelsea, and Everton
over a decade-plus playing career. But to replicate such blistering form at the
African scene, took a large slice of genius.
Four (4) goals in his maiden appearance in the tournament in
2000, one goal each in 2002 and 2004, five goals at the 2006 AFCON, and another
five in 2008, enabled Eto’o surpass Laurent Pokou’s 14 goals.
Two more goals in
the 2010 AFCON staged in Angola helped extend his tally to 18.
Samuel Eto’o Fils’ 18 goals in six African Cup Nations
tournaments may take another generation to get scrubbed.
Laurent Pokou, 14 goals
For so long, until a certain Samuel Eto’o tore the record books, Ivorian Laurent Pokou sat atop the log of the most prolific AFCON strikers ever.
Twice the highest goalscorer of the Africa Cup of Nations, scoring six goals in the 1968 tournament in Ethiopia and eight in the 1970 edition in Sudan, including five strikes in one match against Ethiopia, which Ivory Coast won 6-1, Pokou was the finest the continent had witnessed at the tourney.
Rashidi Yekini, Nigeria, 13 goals
Rashidi Yekini got Nigeria’s first goal at the World Cup but it was at the Nations Cup that he truly devastated opposition defences, made his name a global icon and won the African Footballer of the Year Award once.
With his goals, Yekini helped the Super Eagles win the 1994 Africa Cup of Nations where he also topped the goal charts and was named best player of the tournament.
His 13 goals have ensured he will be the finest Nigerian to appear at the AFCON for yet a while.
Hassan El-Shazly, Egypt, 12 goals
Even if the other Hassan is the more renown to this generation, it is El-Shazly who has got the most goals for Egypt at the African Cup of Nations.
At an impressive dozen strike, he’s been more prolific than the likes of Didier Drogba and Patrick Mboma at the tournament.
One of the finest Egyptian strikers ever, El-Shazly brought his fine form in the Egyptian Premier League, where he was top goalscorer for four different season, to the AFCON and managed six goals at the 1963 African Cup of Nations to go home with the top marksman award.
Didier Drogba, 11 goals
For all his successes at club football, especially with Chelsea where the Blues’ fans voted him as the club’s greatest ever player, Drogba was not able to lead the Ivorian National Football team to an AFCON triumph.
However, ‘the Drog’ is his country’s all-time top scorer and his eleven AFCON goals were instrumental as the Ivory Coast reached the final of the Africa Cup of Nations in 2006 and 2012, but were beaten on penalties on both occasions.
Drogba will certainly go down in history as one of Africa’s finest strikers ever.
