Ivory Coast on Monday began their campaign in the Africa Cup of Nations’ toughest group with a 1-0 win over South Africa.
Mali provided the biggest victory so far at the tournament in Egypt by beating debutant Mauritania 4-1.
In Cairo, Ivory Coast edged an early crunch game in group D against South Africa when Jonathan Kodjia finished neatly from a cross by Max Gradel in the second half.
Photo: AFP
The striker’s goal was enough, although Nicolas Pepe hit the crossbar with a free-kick for Ivory Coast in the first half and was denied again near the end when another free-kick was saved by Ronwen Williams.
Pepe’s late effort was heading for the top corner until Williams got his fingertips to it, just managing to push it over the crossbar.
The group has three former champions in Ivory Coast, South Africa and Morocco, and has been dubbed the “group of death.”
Morocco on Sunday beat Namibia 1-0.
Mali’s victory over Mauritania — to go to the top of group E — started and ended with two of the best goals of the opening four days of the African Cup.
Abdoulay Diaby weaved through Mauritania defenders and unleashed a shot from a distance into the top-right corner for 1-0. Adama Traore underlined Mali’s dominance with his left-footed curler into the top-left corner to end the scoring.
In between, Moussa Marega scored a penalty and Adama Noss hit a low shot from the edge of the penalty area to make it 3-0.
El Hacen El Id converted the second penalty-kick of the game to give Mauritania their first-ever Cup of Nations goal and cut the lead to 3-1.
Traore scored the fourth point just two minutes after that to make certain that there was no chance of a comeback for the newcomers.
Mauritania are the third team making their debut at the Cup of Nations this year, but are the first to look a little out of their depth.
The other debutants are Burundi, who pushed Nigeria all the way before losing 1-0, and Madagascar, who drew 2-2 with Guinea.
Earlier in the same group, Tunisia gave up their advantage with a goalkeeper error to draw 1-1 with Angola.
Youssef M’Sakni gave Tunisia the lead in the first half from the penalty spot after a strange tackle by Dani Massungona.
Massungona launched himself star-shaped — arms and legs spread out — to try and block a run by Naim Sliti, but only succeeded in chopping Sliti down for the penalty, which Tunisia captain M’Sakni converted.
Angola’s late equalizer dampened Tunisia’s start on another hot day at the African Cup.
It came when Tunisia goalkeeper Farouk Ben Mustafa dived to save a shot, but pushed the ball straight to the feet of Djalma Campos, who scored into an empty net.
Action in the last of the six groups started yesterday, when defending champions Cameroon played for the first time. Cameroon faced Guinea-Bissau and Ghana opened against Benin.
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