Despite bowing out of the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations tournament early, Malawi's Flames and Zambia's Chipolopolo have been labelled the competitions surprise packages.

Ghana's football star Abedi Pele Ayew and Ivory Coast's Mamadou Gaye who were SuperSport analysts during the Africa Cup of Nations finals between Egypt and Ghana last Sunday described the Flames and Chipolopolo as surprise packages saying they did wonders.

Malawi who featured at the tournament for the first time after over 20 years were surprise package because they rose from underdogs to stun World Cup bound team Algeria 3-0 in their first game.

However, having started well the team lost in their second game 2-0 to hosts Angola but were on the verge of making a history to go into the quarter finals but failed to win in their third game losing 3-1 to Mali.

The team finished bottom with three points.

Due to their impressive performance at the tournament and during friendlies where they drew with Egypt and Ghana before heading to Angola, Malawi has risen 17 places from the latest Coca Cola Fifa rankings.

They are on position 82 from 99 in the world and they are on position 17 from 23 in Africa.

Zambia which was in a group which had World Cup bound team Cameroon, Tunisia and Gabon emerged top to the surprise of many.

Zambia’s Chipolopolo drew with Tunisia in their first game 2-2 and lost to Cameroon 3-2 in their second game.

But they surprised viewers in their last game when they beat Gabon who were favourites to proceed to the quarter finals 2-1 to top the group with four points having scored more goals.

Cameroon were second with the same number of points.

“ I think all in all this has been a good tournament though there were problems here and there in terms of referees. Malawi and Zambia were surprise package in this tournament. Malawi did well in their first game beating Algeria,” said Ayew.

Zambia are up 11 places to position 73 and 14 in Africa.

Gaye who has been described as controversial said the tournament ended on a good note except the Togo incident which happened before the kick-off of the competition.

He however, did not have kind words for referees who he said Confederations of African Football (Caf) has to do something if the standard of football is to improve.

“The referees were biased in this tournament, you look at the Ivory Coast game against Algeria where Didier Drogba was denied a penalty and then a clear goal was disallowed, a goal being given in the Cameroon game against Egypt which was not a goal,” said Gaye.

He also lambasted the referee from Benin who handled the semi final game between Algeria and Egypt for flashing a yellow card to an Algerian defender which he said was not supposed to be given.

“The referee spoiled the whole game in the first place when he flashed a yellow card to an Algerian defender which was not supposed to be given. That made a difference and spoiled the game which later saw three red cards being flashed,” he said.

Egypt won the match 4-0.

Once again the pharaohs underlined their strength when they won the tournament after beating an impressive youthful Ghana side 1-0 through a late goal by Mohammed Geddo.