The first round is about to be completed at the CAN and, to everyone's surprise, neither Mohamed Salah, nor Sadio Mané, nor Victor Osimhen are leading the way in the scorers' ranking.
The provisional leader is Emilio Nsue, the captain of Equatorial Guinea (Spanish-speaking Guinea, whose capital is Malabo).
With five goals, Nsue leaves his first pursuers, Bounedjah (Algeria) and Mohamed (Egypt), both three goals behind, at a respectable distance.
No wonder after scoring a hat-trick against Guinea-Bissau on Thursday (4-2) and striking twice again against Ivory Coast on Monday January 22 (4-0).
He equals African stars such as Cameroonian Samuel Eto'o or Patrick M'Boma, both authors of a hat-trick during the 2004 edition.
Top scorer in the history of his selection
Before Nsue, we had to go back to the 2008 edition to find a player who scored a hat-trick, in this case the Moroccan Sofiane Alloudi against Namibia (5-1).
Nsue, 34, more than ever the top scorer in the history of his selection – 23 goals in 41 caps – is now the oldest scorer in the history of the competition.
5 - Emilio Nsue scored 5 goals in this group stage of the 2023 African Cup of Nations, only Laurent Pokou has done better during the same group stage in the history of the CAN (7 with Côte d 'Ivory in 1970).
Goleador.
#CAN2023 pic.twitter.com/YRlA3DPzsJ
— OptaJean (@OptaJean) January 22, 2024
Funny number, this Nsue Lopez, Spanish-Guinean... A special sign, he currently plays for a club under the jersey of CF Intercity of Alicante, in the 3rd Spanish division, the equivalent of our National championship.
Second singularity: the number 10 of the Equatoguinean selection is not, or at least has not been for a long time, a professional goalscorer.
Versatile, he evolves according to needs, right back, even central defender, right winger or center forward... With Intercity this season, Emilio played center forward six times (and scored five goals), right back four times (1 goal) and once a right winger… Born in Palma de Mallorca and trained at RCD Mallorca, young Emilio has long dreamed of becoming a Spanish striker.
A nice jackpot of 100,000 euros
He has, in fact, worn the red jersey of La Roja in all the youth selections up to the hopefuls, with a title of European champion in 2011. At club, he remained Majorcan until he was 25, but without ever establishing itself as the house goleador.
As the seasons progressed, four in total in La Liga, he was used more and more often as a defender and was the subject of various loans, before being transferred to English D2 to Middlesbrough, then Birmingham.
The rest consists of passages without much relief in the Cypriot and Bosnian championships, and periods without a club.
Before the opportunity to return home was presented to Alicante a year and a half ago…
In the ranks of “Nzalang Nacional” which he joined in March 2013, Emilio made his debut with a hat-trick against Cape Verde (4-3), in qualifying for the World Cup.
Subsequently, the satisfactions outweighed the disappointments for Nsue, for whom this is the 3rd CAN after a 4th place in 2015 and a quarter-final in 2022.
After the success against Côte d'Ivoire (4-0) on Monday evening, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo offered, in addition to a public holiday this Tuesday to the entire population, a bonus of one million euros approximately to be shared between the players and staff, in addition to the initial participation bonus.
For his double, Nsue even received some 100,000 euros in addition from the president's son.