{"id":3967,"date":"2024-01-21T17:55:42","date_gmt":"2024-01-21T17:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/?p=3967"},"modified":"2024-01-21T17:55:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T17:55:43","slug":"shocks-and-counter-shocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/2024\/01\/21\/shocks-and-counter-shocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Shocks and Counter-Shocks<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (January 16th<\/sup> 2024)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carthage Eagles Vanquished by Brave Warriors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The greatest shock of the fourth day of the 34th<\/sup> Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) was saved for the second of three matches. Tunisia\u2019s Carthage Eagles fell to a 1-0 defeat to Namibia \u2013 the Brave Warriors\u2019 first ever victory at an AFCON). Dean Hotto scored the historic goal at Korhogo\u2019s Stade Amadou Gon Coulibaly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tunisia \u2013 the 2004 African champions \u2013 are ranked third in Africa presently, a full 87 places above Namibia in FIFA\u2019s world rankings, which suggested a mismatch. The long-standing dispute that had halted the Namibian league for several seasons did not help either. Nor did the lack of suitable stadia in Namibia, which forced the Brave Warriors to play their home qualification matches in South Africa \u2013 they came through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Colin Benjamin, and his players, rejected the script that conventional wisdom had provided, preferring a late, but historic conclusion of their own. After Namibia\u2019s captain, Mamelodi Sundowns striker, Peter Shalulie, had an off day by his high standards, substitute, Bethuel Muzeu\u2019s cross invited Hotto to make history, and the Orlando Pirates striker did so, heading past Bechir ben Said with just two minutes of normal time to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Brave Warriors held on to achieve the biggest upset of this edition of AFCON so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almorovids Tamed by Stallions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mauritania\u2019s Almorovids[1]<\/a> are still chasing their first win at an AFCON \u2013 first goal even \u2013 as they slid to a 1-0 defeat by Burkina Faso\u2019s Stallions. Bertrand Traor\u00e9 failed to impress at Chelsea and is struggling to force his way into Unai Emery\u2019s plans at Aston Villa, but he proved be the difference-maker as Mauritania squandered chances to write their own history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burkina Faso, the beaten finalists of 2013, claimed all three points after Mohamed El Abd\u2019s foul on Issa Kabor\u00e9 in added time resulted in a penalty that Traor\u00e9 converted. It was hard on Mauritania, who prop up Group D after Algeria was held to a draw by Angola yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mali\u2019s Eagles, which is named after the traditional hunting bird of the Tuareg, pounced on South Africa 2-0 to leave the Bafana Bafana rooted to the bottom of Group E. Former AFCON winner Hugo Broos saw his team squander a great opportunity to take the lead, when Al-Ahly\u2019s Percy Tau skied his penalty after 19 minutes, which was given after a VAR check revealed that defender Sikou Niakat\u00e9 had used his elbow to Evidence Makgopa\u2019s head to prevent the South African reaching the ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six second half minutes consigned the Bafana Bafana to defeat. Hamari Traor\u00e9 opened the scoring after an hour \u2013 he could hardly miss the tap-in rebound after S\u00e9kou Ke\u00efta\u2019s free-kick thudded against the crossbar. Shortly afterwards Lassine Sinayoko latched on to Kamory Doumbia\u2019s through ball and rounded South Africa\u2019s skipped Ronwen Williams to seal the points for Mali, and leave Broos\u2019 team rooted to the foot of Group E.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Mauritania\u2019s national team takes its nickname from the Berber Islamic dynasty which ruled Spain and parts of the Mahgreb for the best part of a century until 1147 AD. Mauritania was a part of that dynasty, which boasts the foundation of the city of Marrakech. The Almoravids were defeated by the Almohad Caliphate, which incorporated the Almoravids\u2019 territory into its domain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Satish Sekar \u00a9 Satish Sekar (January 16th 2024) Carthage Eagles Vanquished by Brave Warriors The greatest shock of the fourth day of the 34th Africa [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[88,183,184,623,627,634,633,30,632,638,637,203,314,630,624,626,636,635,631,254,628,625,629,370],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3967"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3968,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3967\/revisions\/3968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empowersmag.com\/empowersmagwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}