Senegal’s Junior Lions of Teranga on Thursday in Cairo beat their Benin Republic opponents 1-0 to qualify for the semi-finals of the Under-20 Africa Cup of Nations.
The victory also helped the Senegalese seal their place at the 2023 FIFA Under-20 World Cup billed for Indonesia.
The Teranga Cubs needed team captain Samba Diallo’s goal to beat the Cheetahs at the Cairo International Stadium.
Diallo headed in from Lamine Camara’s brilliant free-kick to send the West Africans to the semi-finals and the World Cup.
They started the better side with Camara and Djibril Diop pulling the strings in midfield.
The Cheetahs defended well, restricting Senegal to limited access in their area with Bachirou Attivi and Morile Dossou-Dognon covering the wide areas.
Landing Badji who won the Best Goalkeeper of the group round failed to deal with a long ball into the Senegal area leaving Olatoundji Tessilimi who could not hit the target.
Benin Republic continued to play on the break against the well-drilled Senegalese team who came into the match with an impressive record of scoring eight goals without conceding.
Senegal created the best chance of the first half through captain Diallo’s low drive from Sulaymane Faye’s unselfish cutback.
He agonisingly missed the target with the goalkeeper rooted to the ground five minutes before the break.
The WAFU-A champions started the second half with more purpose and zeal as they pushed more into the Cheetahs half.
Senegal broke the deadlock six minutes into the second half through Diallo’s diving header from a well-worked set-piece, beating the helpless Rahman Karim to hand Senegal a deserved lead.
Diallo should have doubled Senegal’s lead in the 67th minute when he fired straight at the woodwork from Faye’s intelligent pass.
Faye latched on to a long ball deep into the Benin half, which Karim failed to clear and allowed the youngster to square it.
But Diallo could not convert with an empty goal.
The Teranga Cubs continued to dominate and Pape Diallo came close with a half volley late on, but Karim was well positioned to gather.
With time running out substitute Stephane Vignigbe glanced a header wide for Benin as Senegal held on to qualify for the semi-finals.
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