Yannick Bolasie and Mile Jedinak both featured for their respective countries yesterday in the African Cup of Nations and the Asia Cup with neither of the players shining on the pitch in a similar fashion they have in their first games in the tournaments.
The Eagles’ 25-year-old winger featured for DR Congo in only his second game in the African football tournament after turning down an opportunity to represent his country in 2013 due to his commitments at Selhurst Park, in getting Crystal Palace promoted to the Premier League but sadly for Bolasie, his performance didn’t match either his form in the opening group stage game against Zambia or the pre-match build up.
He had a quiet game, failing to make an impact on the game for his home nation with the only moment of life from the winger being towards the end of the first half in stoppage time as after bursting forward through the Cape Verde defence he drove a shot from the edge of the box towards Josimar Dias but the goalkeeper made a comfortable save.
Bolasie was withdrawn from the game just after the hour mark after a disappointing performance. As a result, he will be looking forward to rectifying that in DR Congo’s final group game against Tunisa who currently occupy first place in Group B after beating Zambia 2-1; meaning that Bolasie’s side will have to beat the group leaders to progress into the latter stages of the tournament.
In the Asian Cup, Mile Jedinak returned from injury of which he picked up in the first game of the tournament to start in his nations’ quarter final game against China and with their 100% record in the group stages it wasn’t going to be the easiest game of the tournament for Australia.
Similar to Bolasie, the Crystal Palace and Australia skipper had a quiet game against China whilst he tried to re-create his form from his first game in the tournament where he contributed a goal and a number of key defensive actions – that wasn’t to be seen here as the midfielder appeared sluggish, Jedinak also picked up a yellow card but won’t have to worry about any suspensions with further cards down the line as all bookings are wiped before the semi-finals.
Tim Cahill scored the two goals for Australia in the second half, giving them the 2-0 win over China – his first goal came shortly after the half time break in the form of a header with his second being more memorable as he bicycle kicked the ball into the back of the net past the goalkeeper.
Australia will find out this morning who they will face in the next stage of the competition with it being the winner of the game between Japan and United Arab Emirates in Newcastle. The game will be played on Tuesday morning.
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