Gabon Aiming To Avoid Ghana In Quarter-Finals

Co-hosts Gabon are bidding to avoid Ghana in the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations and have set their sights on a win against Tunisia to achieve that. Ghana will guarantee top spot in Group D of the Nations Cup with a point against Guinea and Gabon coach Gernot Rohr says the option for them in the knockout stages is to avoid the Black Stars who have won their two group games so far. Ghana knocked out hosts Angola at the same stage last season and have had some close contests against Gabon in recent years, including two tough games in the 2010 World Cup qualifiers which ended in 2-0 wins apiece for either side home and away. Rohr is just keen to ensure another meeting this early in the competition. "We want to avoid Ghana, so we would like to finish top. That would mean also playing our quarter-final in Libreville, in this wonderful L'Amitie stadium with its fantastic crowd. "If we come in as runners-up we would have to go to Equatorial Guinea if we make it into the semi-finals. We will play Tunisia to win, but a draw will be sufficient as we have better goal difference than them," he said at a press conference. Gabon are ranked 77th in the world and 16th in Africa but have played some great football at the tournament especially in their second group game against Niger. Still Rohr is cautioning his team to take it a day at a time. "We're not pretending to be Brazil, we're a very humble bunch, we have lots to improve, we have to keep our feet on the ground," he said. The Panthers face Tunisia on Tuesday night in a battle that will decide the first-placed team in Group D.