Egyptian striker Mohamed Zidan kept matters nicely in perspective with his comments ahead of tomorrow’s semi-final against bitter North African rivals Algeria.   He said: “That game will be a matter of life and death. For both sides it will be like a war.”   Given the tensions surrounding the fixture, after the controversial World Cup qualifying play-off in Sudan in November, and the pre-tournament fatal gun attack on the Togolese team in which three people died, Zidan’s remarks were not clever.

Other pre-match comments stayed the right side of the stupid line. Zidan’s Egyptian colleague Sayed Moawad restricted himself to: “We will give the Algerians a lesson in football.”

Algeria’s Hameur Bouazza, of English Championship side Blackpool said: “Playing Egypt again gives us a chance to prove we beat them fairly and not through luck.”

The other semi-final is a meeting of West African rivals Ghana and Nigeria. But the pre-match rhetoric has been altogether more responsible.

Against most available evidence, under-fire Nigerian coach claimed: “Since the first day I have known we have the players that could win this tournament.”

Meanwhile, Ghanaian coach Milovan Rajevac praised the young players in his injury-ravaged squad: “I took eight players from the Under-20s a squad and they have proved their quality, they are tough.

And striker Asamoah Gyan, scorer of the Black Stars quarter-final winner against hosts Angola, cited the recent record between the sides when he cheekily noted: “They won’t want us to beat them for the third time in three years.”