Fans left devastated as ‘breathtaking’ Afcon Goal of the Tournament contender disallowed and say ‘if only…’

ALGERIA striker Baghdad Bounedjah might have scored the Africa Cup of Nations Goal of the Tournament – but it does not count.

Bounedjah opened the lead against Angola in the Afcon group stage match in the Ivory Coast.

Baghdad Bounedjah saw his bicycle kick ruled out for offside

And he thought he had doubled his lead after perfectly taking down the ball from a cross before bicycle kicking his volley into the net.

But replays revealed Bounedjah – who plays for Qatari side Al Sadd – was well offside when the cross was played to him.

It meant one of the tournament’s all-time great goals was chalked off – much to the heartbreak of fans.

One said: “IF ONLY…”

Another added: “Watching this live, this was breathtaking. So sad such an amazing moment won’t even make a highlight reel.”

One agreed: “That was beautiful, shame it was off.”

Another fumed: “This offside pain me pass because what a goal!”

The disallowed effort came back to haunt Bounedjah and Algeria as Mabululu’s leveller from the spot on 68 minutes saw the points shared.

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Algeria boss Djamel Belmadi said after the game: “This is not the result we expected. We were expecting to have three points.

“We tried our best and didn’t want to lose the game so we did what we can do to get a point which was necessary. 

“We were suppose to do better in the second half but we can also talk about the moments we did well.

“We have identified our weakness as we didn’t defend very well for us to concede the penalty which was a big mistake.

“We are in a transitional period so we try for this team to work together and we have also learnt lessons from this game for our remaining games.”