Eniola Olatunji reporting.
#CAFU20Egypt2023.
Young Bright Stars of Southern Sudan lived prophetically to their name of being Bright Stars earning their first ever win of the CAF U20 finals with a lone goal victory over Les Fauves of Central African Republic on Thursday at the Suez Canal Stadium in Egypt.
Clubless attacker with long names Paul America Jauta Mara aged 18 having been born on 15th July 2004 slotted in a beautiful penalty in the 2nd minute of play but CAR survived a barrage of attacks in the 86th minute that would have given the debutantes the second goal as a forest of legs of almost the entire people of the Republique blocked every shot at goal by the Bright Stars.
The two countries have engaged in boundary dispute that has been in existence since 1924 and this boy named America came to ‘pepper them’ with this lone goal decider.
CAR was not that a bright star country as they were ousted at the quarterfinal in 2021 at Mauritania where the team played 4 matches; won 1; drew 1; lost 1 scoring 4 goals and conceding 8 goals.
On record, CAR lost to Gambia 0-3 on 26th February 2021; lost to Congo 0-1 on 8th December 2022; again, lost to Congo 1-3 on 11th December 2022 but shocked Junior Lions of Cameroon 1-0 on 14th December 2022.
However, on Thursday the team dominated the South Sudan lads with ball possession of 62-38%, 70-56 pass accuracy but Ref Clement Franklin of Ivory Coast made a whopping 21 foul calls on CAR and 13 on South Sudan with only a yellow card against CAR but the CAR team squandered 15-1 corner kicks advantage.
South Sudan were never goal shy with their 7-7 shots on target unlike their first international match on the 31st of May 2018 when the team lost 5-1 to Uganda in their biggest ever loss. Their biggest ever win was a 4-0 pounding of Burundi on the 27th November 2020.
Earlier on Monday, Uganda had beaten CAR 2-1 and South Sudan lost 1-2 to Congo.
Congo is playing Uganda in the second match of Group B at 6pm. A win for either side there means qualification for the quarterfinal.
Tomorrow Friday at 1500 hours, Tunisia will play Benin Republic while Zambia will size up the Scorpions of Gambia. Both matches are in Group C.
