The 32-game tournament saw an aggregate attendance of about 650,000 or more than 20,000 spectators per match. Compare that to the 2011 Asian Cup hosted by Qatar, which averaged just over 1,000 fans per game, leading to obvious questions about the logic in rejecting Australia's bid to host the 2022 Fifa World Cup in favour of Qatar.

The Asian Cup had many flavours and styles of soccer on display, with the two best teams, South Korea and Australia, meeting in the final and sparring skilfully until the last seconds of extra time.

Iran and Iraq was another exciting clash, which also went into extra time with a sending off for Iran's Mehrdad Pooladi for pretending Iraq's goalkeeper had headbutted him.

Referees were told to clamp down on players for simulation, time wasting and dissent, so Iran had nothing to complain about. But complain they did, saying Iraq had fielded an ineligible player. The AFC dismissed Iran's complaint.

And some "lesser lights" shone brightly.

Australia's Massimo Luongo - who plays for Swindon Town in England's third tier - was named the Most Valuable Player and China's Wang Dalei - who plays for Shandong Luneng in the Chinese Super League - enhanced his growing reputation as a reliable shot stopper.

Similarly, Equatorial Guinea holding player Ivan Zarandona - who plays for BC Rangers in the Hong Kong Premier League - was one of the standout players in the Africa Cup of Nations as the last-minute hosts, took full advantage of their home support to progress to the semi-finals.

Unfortunately, some games in Africa were marred by crowd violence and even the spectre of match-fixing reared its ugly head.

Equatorial Guinea fans were clearly passionate, but when Ghana knocked them out at the semi-final stage, passion quickly turned to aggression, with fans throwing bottles and other debris at the players.

Sadly, because of this behaviour, the African Cup of Nations arguably left behind more negative memories than positive ones.

In a bizarre twist, the CAF Referees Committee suspended a Mauritius official Rajindraparsad Seechurn for six months and demoted him from the elite Fifa panel of African referees. He had awarded a crucial last-minute penalty to Equatorial Guinea to take their quarter-final against Tunisia to extra time.

Something about this decision rankles. It is difficult to contemplate, for example, the FA ever suspending and demoting an EPL referee based primarily on poor performance during one match without evidence of a major crime or error. Therefore the CAF must have had irrefutable evidence to justify their harsh punishmentof Seechurn, which has led to speculation of possible match-fixing.