Carlos Mendes Gomes came off the bench in Guinea-Bissau’s Africa Cup of Nations opener against Ivory Coast.

The Bolton man replaced Moreto Cassama in the 67th minute but they were beaten 2-0 by one of the early favourites to win the competition.

It was a special moment for Gomes, who received his first international call-up a couple of months ago.

He wrote on his Instagram page: “Where can I start… yesterday it was a mix of emotions.

“I would never have imagined six years ago that I would be represented my beloved country Guinea-Bissua and especially to be playing in the opening game of the AFCON.

“It has been a long way but I thank God for giving me the strength, the patience and always helping me remain humble.

“The defeat hurts as it’s not what I wanted for a special moment like that but I am sure we will work extremely hard to make our country and our people proud.”

Guinea-Bissau also have group fixtures coming up against Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea over the next eight days.

Meanwhile, Gethin Jones played the full 90 minutes as Australia kicked off the Asian Cup with a 2-0 victory against India. Jackson Irvine and Jordan Bos both struck during the second half.

It was Jones’ second start for the Socceroos, also featuring in the 2-friendly 0 win against Bahrain last weekend.

After the game, Australia boss Graham Arnold said: “We have got to improve a lot more than that. We are here to win the Asian Cup and to reach the stars, you have to have high expectations and put those expectations on the boys, and get them to believe in what we can do.

"I have to give full credit to India. I thought that there was probably a little bit too much excitement in the first half for the competition to start.

“But after we got to half time and showed them some good clips about what they were doing well, second half we did very well.”

The Socceroos are back in action against Syria on Thursday and also face Uzbekistan in the group stage.