Africa Cup of Nations Day 14: Wilfried Bony lifts Ivory Coast to semi-finals

For the fourth tournament in succession, Ghana are one of the last four teams standing.

Avram Grant and Co. booked their place in the semi-final of the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations with a convincing 3-0 victory over Guinea on Sunday in a match that is sure to have Malians everywhere even more upset on the manner in which they missed out on a spot in the quarterfinal.

Meanwhile, Ivory Coast are off to the semi-finals for the first time since 2012 after their match with fellow World Cup 2014 participants Algeria produced a 3-1 victory.

Here's how the action unfolded in Equatorial Guinea on Sunday:

Ghana 3, Guinea 0

Gianluca Nesci: If you got to the Nuevo Estadio de Malabo just a tad late earlier today, you missed some excitement.

Ghana was in a rush, and they sure as hell weren't going to wait for you.

In just the fourth minute of the contest, a clever back-heel from Andre Ayew slid across the box and landed on the foot of Christian Atsu, who scored his first goal of the tournament, giving the favorites a dream start.

Kwesi Appiah doubled his team's lead just before the interval, and Atsu put the cherry on top with a marvelous goal in the 61st minute - a strike that may have actually been a cross, but we'll ignore that for now and embrace the romance of it.

The Black Stars are dancing into the semi-final, where they will meet tournament hosts Equatorial Guinea on Thursday.

Everybody together now, right foot first.

Ivory Coast 3, Algeria 1

Gordon Brunt: Thanks to Wilfried Bony's head, the Ivory Coast advanced to their first semi-final at the Africa Cup of Nations since 2012.

The striker helped fend off a stubborn Algerian team by finding the back of the net with two powerful headers to eliminate the North African nation.

The first occurred just before the half-hour mark when the Algerian defence poorly marked Bony while they appealed to the match official that the new Manchester City player was offside.

As their appeals fell on deaf ears, Bony clinically thumped the ball past the 'keeper, who did little to make an effort while he glared over at the linesman.

The Algerians got an equaliser shortly after halftime courtesy of an unlucky bounce.

After the ball was crossed into the Ivory Coast box, Hilal Soudani took advantage of an Ivorian defender nutmegging himself. The forward controlled the ball and thumped it beyond Sylvain Gbohouo.

Less than 20 minutes later, it was Bony's turn to play hero once again.

Following Yaya Toure's curling cross into the box from a free-kick, Bony connected with another header. There were no cries for offside this time as Bony soared through the air and connected even harder than he did during the opening goal.

Gervinho sealed the victory in the dying moments of the match when he added the Ivory Coast's third goal in stoppage to give the nation a 3-1 victory.

The Ivorians will now prepare for their semi-final date with the Democratic Republic of Congo.