AFCON
With perfect run and clean sheet, Tunisia secure 2023 AFCON place
Tunisia became the latest among the seven teams to confirm their place in the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations after a 1-0 victory over Libya in Benghazi on Tuesday night.
The six other qualifiers include the host country, Cote d’Ivoire, Morocco, Algeria, South Africa, Senegal and Burkina Faso.
Tunisia’s victory over Libya moved them to 10 points top of Group J, one ahead of second placed Equatorial Guinea and seven ahead of the Libyans with two rounds of matches left.
Tunisia achieved their qualification on an unbeaten record and without conceding a goal, a statistic that excited head coach Jalel Kadri.
“We secured qualification to the African Cup of Nations, and Tunisia is the only team in the qualifiers that did not concede any goal so far.
“Accordingly it confirmed our technical value of our defence, and a great work awaits us in the attack to score,” the tactician said.
He was also delighted with the performance of his side against a tough Libya side at their backyard in Benghazi.
“We achieved a difficult victory, in a difficult stadium and against a difficult opponent. We did not let the opponent take the initiative and we controlled the course of the match. I thank the players and their experience decided the outcome of the match,” the tactician added.
While Tunisia have earned a place in the final tournament, Libya will have an outside chance to qualify, but that is dependent on whether Equatorial Guinea will lose both their matches in June.
Assistant coach, Idriss Murabit, said his side can take pride in the performance against Tunisia moving forward.
“We did not deserve defeat against Tunisia, and our players did what they had to do and they are affected by the loss. There was a clear improvement in the match, but luck was not on our side, especially since we created chances to score,” he said.
Haythem Jouini scored the lone goal for Tunisia in the 16th minute, powering home a header from Ali Maaloul’s corner.
Libya had chances to score, but they were not calm and relaxed infront of goal, seeing many chances go begging.
Their keeper Muad Allafi made two good saves in the dying minutes of the match to deny substitute Seifeddine Jaziri.
Mauritania 1-1 DR Congo
Elsewhere in Nouakchott, 10-man DR Congo held on for a point away from home as they played to a 1-1 draw with hosts Mauritania.
The result leaves Group I wide open with only three points separating leaders Gabon (7) and bottom side Congo (4) with two rounds of matches left.
Mauritania are third in the group with five points and there will be all to play for heading to the final cluster of fixtures in June.
“We lacked accuracy in the first half but the difficulty of this match will help us grow. We will do everything to win the two matches in June to qualify,” said Mauritania captain Aly Abeid after the match.
Meanwhile, DR Congo head coach Sebastian Desabre was left ruing missed chsnces.
“We should have scored more goals in the first 30 minutes given the chances we created. We faced a very brave Mauritanian side that did not stop pushing. This is now over and we focus on the next assignments. The match against Gabon will be very decisive and our target is to get to 10 points, and this is by winning both remaining games,” said the Frenchman.
-Caf
The Libyan Football Federation (LFF) has sacked its Serbian coach, Milutin Sredojević who is popularly known as Micho.
This is coming ahead of Libya’s back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations clashes with Nigeria next month.
Paradoxically, Sports Village Square gathered that the coach’s contract was only recently renewed for six months before the axe fell on the Serbian.
His sack was precipitated by the results obtained in their teo matches of the AFCON qualifiers.
Libya drew 1-1 with Rwanda at home and lost 2-1 away to Benin Republic despite beig a goal up at half time.
The Libyan side, Mediterranean Knights are due to play against the Nigeria Super Eagles in Uyo on 6 October while the return leg holds on 14 October at the 11 July Stadium in Tripoli.
According to information Sports Village Square gathered from Tripoli, the Mediterranean Knights’ coach, Micho led the Libyan national team to win nine matches since taking over in October of last year, he failed to build a strong team due to his poor choices.
He also took a risk with the footballers chosen in the AFCON qualifiers, and the result was shocking to the Libyan sports audience.
According to sources close to the Libyan Football Federation, there is a strong tendency to sign a national coach to lead the Libyan team during the remaining qualifiers for the African Cup of Nations.
CAF President Patrice Motsepe has lashed out at Ghana and some other African countries whose home grounds were recently banned from hosting CAF matches owing to inadequate facilities. He made the remarks in Nairobi, Kenya during a press conference,
After the MatchDay 2 of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, CAF ruled Ghana’s Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi as being inadequate to host international matches. Being the only approved ground in the country, Ghana will now look towards either Cote d’Ivoire or Togo for their remaining home matches of the Afcon qualifiers.
Other African countries without approved home grounds are: Djibouti, Chad, Niger, Eritrea, Gabon, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, São Tomé and Burundi.
Motsepe voiced his frustration over the recurring issue of nations being unable to host home games.
“Nothing frustrates me more than a national team or club side having to play home matches outside,” he stated.
He stressed the significance of playing in front of home fans, adding, “You can’t grow football if the national teams or club sides aren’t playing in front of their home fans.”
Motsepe reiterated CAF’s commitment to working with countries to ensure they have at least one suitable stadium to host international fixtures.
“Our conversations in every country are to make sure there is at least one stadium capable of hosting a CAF category C game,” he emphasized.
The on-going CAF AFCON Cote d’Ivoire 2023 Coaches Symposium in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire has brought together, the last three coaches that handled the Nigeria national football team.
Gernot Rohr, Jose Peseiro and Austin Eguavoen are part of the the elite coaches currently gathered in Abidjan.
Gernot Rohr whose tenure of 5 years and 55 matches is the longest ever by any coach in Nigeria, is currently handling Nigeria’s Africa Cupof Nations and World Cup qualifying rivals, Benin Republic. He was succeeded in the interim by Austin Eguavoen who is currently having another interim stint.
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