Eniola Olatunji reporting.
#CAFU20Egypt2023.
The Aigles of Tunisia on Friday drew goalless with the Junior Squirrels of Benin Republic in the most goal shy group C that is yet to witness a team scoring two goals per team in the group at the CAF U20 African Cup of Nations in Egypt
Spectators at the Herras El-Hedud Stadium could hardly spend five minutes per session on their seats in a match that kept swinging here and there like the village church bell of Africa in the days of yore. The match was earlier scheduled for Alexandria Stadium, but the organizers moved it to Herras Stadium at short notice.
All eyes were on the North African country, Tunisia who were runners up in 1985 and fourth placed at the last tournament in 2021 to come smoking having lost their previous game 0-1 to the Scorpions of Gambia as against Benin whose best performance was a Bronze in 2005.
Instead, it was Benin Republic that came shooting with 10 marked shots to 4 of Tunisia though the shots on target were 3-2 in favor of Tunisia; the rivalry was neck to neck like 3-3 corner kicks and 1-1 yellow cards. The passes were interesting with 340-317 in favor of Tunisia but the accuracy in the passes was 64-66% in favor of Benin.
Going back to the records, we observed that Tunisians like to show brightness but will slump when it matters most. At the last tournament, the Tunisians lost 1-4 in the semifinals to Uganda on 1st March 2021 in the match officiated by Ref Pierre Atche of Gabon but after playing goalless after extra time against Scorpions of Gambia, the North Africans lost the Bronze via 4-2 penalty kicks.
Gambia still leads Group C temporarily with 3 points; Benin is second with 2 points; Zambia and Tunisia share a point each. Zambia has stockpiled anti scorpion vaccines to win at 6 pm this Friday when the second match will be played at the Herras El-Hedud Stadium not the Alexandria Stadium.
Tomorrow Saturday, the last group matches will start in group A with the Flying Eagles of Nigeria waiting to show the Champions stuff having won the title record seven times against struggling Mozambique while Cub Lions of Senegal that has already qualified for the quarterfinals with two wins, one over Nigeria, will face hosts Egypt who needs at least a draw to have hopes of qualification. Both matches will be played at 1800 hours.
