Eniola Olatunji reporting.
#CAFU20Egpyt2023.
The Junior Ugandan Hippos brushed off the Les Fauves of the Central African Republic 2-1 on Monday in a group B CAF U20 encounter at the Suez Canal Stadium, Ismailia in Egypt.
The Hippos who were Runners up at the last tournament in Mauritania opened scoring from a fantastic flick off the right foot of Mugulusi in the 47th minute before Johnbull Demba increased the tally off a deliberate deflection in a goal mouth melee in the 74th minute.
The introduction of Nigeria’s Tony Biakolo sporting the no 23 shirt for the Ugandan defence did not save the crafty move of Les Fauves’ Gbenou from scoring a consolation goal at added time of 90+5 minutes.
Uganda dominated both halves showing flashes of a would be champion hitting 8 shots on target against 3 of CAR; but the underdog CAR team showed desperation causing 19 fouls against 11 of Uganda and their goalkeeper escaped a straight red picking a yellow for a vicious attack on a Hippo attacker at the periphery of the penalty box; that yellow became one out of four picked by CAR but there were two yellows to Uganda.
The Hippos showed they were more interested in shot at sight goals as they wasted 8 corner kicks to CAR’s 2 meaning they are either not good at set pieces or were confident targeting straight shots at goal.
Uganda is temporarily on top of Group B with three points.
The Congo Democratic Republic will be playing debutante South Sudan in the second match of Group B at 1800 hours.
On Sunday, hosts Egypt played goalless with Mozambique in the first Group A match while the highly rated Flying Eagles of Nigeria slumped to the Teranga Cub Lions of Senegal 0-1.
On Tuesday, two matches will be played in group C; Gambia will lock horns with Tunisia at 1500 hours before Junior Squirrels of Republic of Benin will attempt a jump over the Zambian junior team at 1800 hours.
