By Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line
…Beat Ten Women Ivory Coast 2-1 at the Quarterfinal.
THE FENNECS of Algeria on Saturday in Casablanca Morocco booked their first female world cup appearances in history and a first WAFCON semifinal ticket with a 2-1 win over better rated Female Elephants of Ivory Coast.
Ines Konan of Ivory Coast opened the score sheet raising in the 30th minute hopes of an Algeria annihilation but the straight red card to utility player, Nsira Ouedraogo in the 42nd minute made the hopes to shake and then Rebecca Elloh lost a penalty kick in the 62nd minute.
Coach of Algeria feared a loss and rejig his plans bringing Ines Khiti for Lina Boussaha in the 46th minute only for Khiti to score the equalizer in the 58th minute. Marine Dafeur of Bristol City FC women sensing advantage positioning of Ould Brahaim gave a pass that Ould to score in the 64th minute used that to send off the Ivoriens as the Score Board read Algeria 2 CIV 1.
Algeria had to brace up when Morgane Ikene got injured and was taken out in the 20th minute of play and she was quickly replaced by another Morgane Belkhiter who held the midfield well.
The Red card affected the Ivoriens who held ball possessions of 38-62%, made 13-9 shots at goal, 5-6 on target; they tried to fight back getting 5-2 corner kicks with 15-11 Crosses but the Algerians who know that West African football is physical used long passes 73-43 stringing 438-264 passes to get the Ivoriens stranded.
To get to the quarterfinal stage, CIV had beaten BFA 4-1; played 2-2 with South Africa and defeated Tanzania 2-1. Algeria skimmed Senegal 2-0, lost 0-1 to Morocco and canned Kenya 2-0.
Both teams had met five times with Ivory Coast winning twice and Algeria once and Ivory Coast scored 11 of the 19 goals but the Red card wounded the female Elephants. All the five meetings were at WAFCON for Algeria won 3-2 on 24th January 2010; drew 2-2 on 30th January 2013; lost 1-3 on 1st February 2015; drew 1-1 on 11th July 2019 and lost 1-3 on 20th January 2022.
Algeria ranked 74 by this win qualified for the WAFCON semifinal and a first ever ticket at the world cup finals. It is also their first move into WAFCON semifinal as in their 7 appearances at the continental level finals their best was a quarterfinal at the last tournament.
Women Elephants ranked 72 that was at the world cup finals once in 2015 and ousted at the group stages has only been to WAFCON party three times and won Bronze in 2014.
Algeria will meet winner of the Malawi vs Ghana encounter in the semifinal. Morocco is meeting South Africa at 9pm tonight in the next quarterfinal; tomorrow Sunday at 6pm Cameroon will slug it out with ten times and current champions Nigeria while at 9pm tomorrow it will be Malawi vs Ghana.
The Female football World Cup tournament finals will take place in Brazil next year. The four semifinalists from Africa will fly their flags in Brazil.
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