The defining moment of the 23rd African Cup of Nations came shortly before Malian president Oumar Konare was to hand the trophy to the winning Cameroonian captain, Rigobert Song.

Cameroon will celebrate with a national holiday on Monday

A large section of the 70 000 crowd that packed the 60 000-seater March 26 Stadium in the capital city of Bamako started chanting: Mali, Mali, Mali - clapping their hands in tune as they did so.

Not that they were bitter about the fact that Mali had not won - after all, the hosts had finished a credible fourth, which was more than even their coach Henri Kasperczak had expected from them - no, the crowd was just voicing its feeling of national pride.

And it is here, that the real success of the Nations Cup must be gauged.

On the field of play, the success is easily seen: Cameroon's Indomitable Lions won after beating Senegal 3:2 on penalties after 120 minutes of football between the two teams had failed to produce a goal.

World Cup finalists and defending champions Cameroon were clearly the outstanding team of the tournament. Played six, won five (six if you count the penalty shoot-out victory), scored nine goals and conceded none.

Not surprisingly they became the first country since Ghana in 1965 to successfully defend their title, winning their fourth championship overall and equalling Ghana and Egypt's tally in the process.

They had arguably the best goalkeeper (Boukar Alioum), the best defender (Song), the best midfielder (Salomon Olembe) and the best forward (Patrick Mboma). The three goals Olembe and Mboma each scored gave them joint top spot in the scorer's list with Nigeria's Julius Aghahowa.

Fellow World Cup finalists Senegal and Nigeria can also look back at a useful run-up to the World Cup finals, finishing second and third respectively. In beating Nigeria's Super Eagles in their semi-finals, the Senegalese qualified for their first-ever final and even though they lost to Cameroon, they can look back on the competition with some satisfaction.

Finishing third for Nigeria is tantamount to failing and discussions in the West African country are bound to be around coach Shaibu Amodu and his ability to lead the team in Japan/South Korea later this year. Another thing that will worry the Super Eagles' fans is the apparent inability of the team to go through an entire tournament without some sort of squabble. This time around it was about money and air-fares and these things are bound to have a negative effect on the team and team morale.

Africa's two other World Cup finalists, South Africa and Tunisia disappointed. Bafana, who have finished first, second and third in their three previous tournaments, had only one good thirty minute spell in four matches, which was enough to see them beat Morocco 3:1 and go through to the quarter-finals were they were bundled out by the hosts.

Tunisia did not even have that and were sent packing after the group stages with two goalless draws and a defeat.

In both countries the discussion around the suitability of their respective coaches, Carlos Queiroz and Henri Michel is bound to take on a new dimension and it seem unlikely that both will still be in charge come June.

The real success of the tournament though, lies off the field of play.

Paradoxically though, the measure of success is gauged by the absence of organisational failures.

Dancers entertain the crowds in Bamako's March 26th Stadium

There were, of course, some. The press facilities were, to put it kindly, a total shambles and during the final several hundred non-journalists crammed the tiny space allocated for the media because they had nowhere else to sit.

The mixed zone, in which journalists are meant to get their after-match quotes, did not take place after the final and only a handful of hand-picked journalists were taken by the continental association's (CAF) media officers into the change-rooms.

The communication between CAF and the media was at best, problematic and some of the statements issued by the organisation were issued only in French, reflecting the Francophone bias CAF is always accused of.

The players' villages were not completed on time and only a handful of teams stayed in them. When asked why the building had not been finished, a worker at the village in Bamako said that until two months before the start of the competition, they had not expected the tournament to go ahead.

"CAF took the tournament away from Zimbabwe two years ago, we thought the same would happen here."

Other areas of concern were not of CAF's doing. Low turn-out at matches that did not involve the hosts, expensive hotels and taxi drivers that wanted to make a year's income during the duration of the competition, to name but a few.

But the tournament has also had its fair share of success. Not only the absence of any real disasters and organisational chaos can be considered a success. The biggest achievement must be what the competition has done for the country.

Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world - a dry dusty area where the majority of inhabitants are living dangerously close to the line that divides them from a minimum existence level. Unemployment is rife and thousands of people are homeless and many roam the streets begging.

During the duration of the competition, all of that was forgotten though. A feeling of national pride was evident not only by the flags that hung proudly in shops and houses on car antennas and stalls, it could also be felt. Everybody was talking about football and their team and as they mentioned the names of their players, like Soumaila Coulibaly or Seydou Keita, they did so with pride.

"The whole world now knows about Mali. They know about the country and its football team and they know that we can organise a big tournament," said taxi driver Mamadou Camara.

And while this might be a bit over-optimistic, this tournament has certainly given Malians a feeling of national pride - at least for a while.