• Mali 1 Tunisia 1 (aet; Mali win 3-2 on penalties)

• North Africans fail to take the game to 10 men

There is perhaps no nation on earth whose football is as paranoid as that of Tunisia, and with so little reason. They qualified for a third successive World Cup with ease and forced a draw in a friendly against Brazil in November, yet their football is infected with fear. To watch them play is to experience a dystopian world in which imagination has been outlawed. In the end, they went out of the Cup of Nations on Saturday because their self-doubt proved even stronger than Malian self-destructiveness.

The Mali goalkeeper Djigui Diarra took the plaudits but this was a game Tunisia should never have lost. For over an hour and a half they played against 10. They took the lead in the 89th minute. Twice they led in the shootout. And somehow they still lost, undermined by their own unwillingness to take the game on. If they had only played, they would surely have won but as so often before, Tunisia did not just play. They squabbled and spoiled, feigned injury and moaned, and every so often forgot themselves, played a handful of passes and looked the decent side that they really should be.

Price tag for winger’s move to Manchester City would make headlines in any other country but not in England

Antoine Semenyo, it seems likely, will soon join Manchester City from Bournemouth for a fee of £65m. Given how well Rayan Cherki and Phil Foden have played from the right this season, it is not immediately obvious why City need him, but the modern game is the modern game, the rammed calendar makes large and flexible squads essential and Pep Guardiola may have some esoteric plan for the Ghanaian anyway. But perhaps what is most striking about the deal is the fee – or, more precisely, how little attention it has drawn.

English football has become inured to big transfers. The fee feels about right. Semenyo is 25. He has four and a half years left on his contract. He is quick, skilful, intelligent and works hard. He is disciplined, but has the capacity to do the unexpected. Of course a player of his ability costs that much. Yet £65m would make him the third-most expensive player in Bundesliga history. He would be the seventh-most expensive in Serie A history, the 14th-most expensive in La Liga history. Only nine non-English clubs have paid a fee higher than that. Even in Premier League terms, Semenyo sneaks into the top 25.