Emilio Nsue, the captain of Equatorial Guinea’s national team, has reintroduced the term “hat-trick” to the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) after a 16-year hiatus from the continental football stage.
This remarkable feat was achieved during the match against Guinea-Bissau in the second round of group stage matches at the ongoing AFCON tournament.
Nsue becomes the first player to score a hat-trick in the current edition of the AFCON and the first in the history of Equatorial Guinea, marking the first such accomplishment in AFCON since Moroccan Soufiane Alloudi’s hat-trick in 2008.
At the age of 34 years and 110 days, Nsue also secures the position as the second oldest player to score in the Africa Cup of Nations, trailing only behind Madagascar’s Emma Andriatsima, who achieved this milestone at the age of 35 years and 34 days during the 2019 edition against the Democratic Republic of Congo in the tournament’s quarter-finals, according to Opta, the statistics and analytics network.
Before Emilio Nsue, 17 players had recorded hat-tricks in the history of the Africa Cup of Nations.
Notable among them are Egyptians Mohamed Diab “Al-Deebah” in 1957, Mahmoud El-Gohary in 1959, and Hossam Hassan in 1998.
The list also includes Ivorian Laurent Pokou, Algerian Hassan Lalmas, South African Benni McCarthy, and Cameroonian Samuel Eto’o, among others.
Nsue’s exceptional performance has brought a wave of excitement to the tournament, setting a new milestone and revitalizing the historic achievement of a hat-trick in the prestigious Africa Cup of Nations.
