It took the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying competition less than 24 hours to claim its first coaching victim with Rabah Saadane quitting after Algeria were held at home by Tanzania.
It was the fifth and surely the last time the silver haired handler will leave the Desert Foxes after surpassing expectations last year by guiding them to the World Cup at the expense of fierce rivals Egypt.
Saadane hinted some time ago that the pressures was getting to him and after watching Algeria come from behind to salvage a 1-1 draw with traditional poor travelers Tanzania on Friday he announced his exit the following day.
PHOTO: AFP
Jerry Tegete fired the visitors in front from a free-kick on 32 minutes and after Adlane Guedioura leveled on the stroke of halftime, Algeria applied continuous second-half pressure without reward.
Tanzania were not the only team to spring a surprise with international unknown Jose Luis Mendes scoring 14 minutes from time to give Guinea Bissau a shock 1-0 home victory over Kenya.
The Harambee Stars flew to the tiny Portuguese-speaking West African country confident of securing maximum points having impressed in away warm-ups, holding Tanzania and comfortably disposing of Ethiopia.
Cape Verde Islands have never played at the biennial showcase of African soccer and they got off to a satisfactory start by edging Mali 1-0 in Praia courtesy of a late first-half goal from Fernando Varela.
It was the first competitive match for Mali coach Alain Giresse, the former France midfield ace harshly fired by Gabon after a first-round exit from the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola in January.
While a Uganda win at home to Angola was not unexpected, the 3-0 Kampala winning margin on a wet, muddy Mandela Stadium pitch was, as David Obua, Andy Mwesigwa and Geoffrey Sserunkuma scored.
New France-born Angola coach Herve Renard boasted pre-match that his players were “brilliant” and maybe they are, but there were no signs of genius in front of a near-capacity 40,000 crowd in the Ugandan capital.
Other matches delivered predictable results, with Ivory Coast, always among the title favorites, and South Africa winning comfortably at home and World Cup flops Cameroon away.
English Premier League trio Yaya Toure of Manchester City, Salomon Kalou of Chelsea and Emmanuel Eboue of Arsenal scored the goals that saw the Ivorian Elephants trample Rwanda 3-0 in Abidjan.
Early and late first-half goals from strikers Katlego Mphela and Bernard Parker earned wasteful South Africa a 2-0 win over Niger in northeast city Nelspruit, where Everton midfielder Steven Pienaar sparkled.
Inter striker Samuel Eto’o scored a brace for the second international in a row as Cameroon triumphed 3-1 over Mauritius to give high-profile Spanish coach Javier Clemente the perfect start to his tenure.
Botswana, surprise pacesetters in the only five-team group, boosted their chances of a first Cup of Nations appearance with a dramatic 2-1 home win over Togo as Jerome Ramatlhakwane snatched a late winner.
The next generation of running talent takes center stage at today’s Berlin Marathon, in the absence of stars including Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge and Ethiopian world record holder Tigist Assefa. With most of the major marathon stars skipping the event in the wake of the Paris Olympics just more than a month ago, the field is wide open in the men’s and women’s races. Since 2015, Kipchoge has won five times in Berlin, Kenenisa Bekele has won twice and Guye Adola once — with all three missing today. Kenyan Kibiwott Kandie and Ethiopian Tadese Takele are among the favourites for the men, while
Taiwan’s Tony Wu yesterday beat Mackenzie McDonald of the US to win the Nonthaburi Challenger IV in Thailand, his first challenger victory since 2022. The 26-year-old world No. 315, who won both his qualifiers to advance to the main draw, has been on a hot streak this month, winning his past nine matches, including two that ensured Taiwan’s victory in their Davis Cup World Group I tie. Wu took just more than two hours to top world No. 172 McDonald 6-3, 7-6 (7/4) to win his second challenger tournament since the Tallahassee Tennis Challenger in 2022. Wu’s Tallahassee win followed two years of
Zhang Shuai yesterday said that she nearly quit after losing 24 matches in a row — now the world No. 595 is into the quarter-finals of her home China Open. The 35-year-old is to face Spain’s Paula Badosa as the lowest-ranked player to reach this stage in the history of the tournament after Badosa reeled off 11 of the last 12 games in a 6-4, 6-0 victory over US Open finalist Jessica Pegula. Zhang went into Beijing on a barren run lasting more than 600 days and her string of singles defeats was the second-longest on the WTA Tour Open era, which
Taiwanese martial artists bagged one gold, four silver and three bronze medals at the World Junior Wushu Championships in Brunei, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Brunei Darussalam said yesterday. Liu Yu-tzu won the gold medal in the girl’s taijiquan A group and also picked up a silver medal in the girl’s taijijian A group. Hu Hsin-ling, Yu Min-hsun and Chen Chao-hsiang each won a silver medal in the girl’s jianshu B, boy’s nangun B and boy’s taijijian A groups respectively. Hu also won a bronze medal in the girl’s qiangshu B group, while Yu and Lin Shih-hung picked up bronze medals
RSS