After Lassine Sinayoko’s second-half penalty earned Mali a 1-1 draw with the hosts on Friday, Morocco missed a chance to advance to the last 16 of the African Cup of Nations.
The first-half penalty early in the second-half gave Morocco the lead, but Sinayoko responded on 64 minutes with a spot kick.
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Morocco’s record-breaking 19 matches were ended by a 2-0 victory over Comoros in the tournament’s opening game at the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium in Rabat.
Morocco, who leads Group A with four points from two games, now has their place in the knockout phase, as a result.
Mali leads Zambia by two points after drawing 0-0 with the minnows Comoros earlier in Casablanca.
Morocco will face Zambia on Mondayy, and a victory there will guarantee that the hosts will qualify as group winners.
“We’ll look back at the second half to find out what the issue was, but we didn’t play the way we did in the first half.” We had to leave because we didn’t impose our rules. Azzedine Ounahi, a Moroccan midfielder, told the broadcaster beIN Sports that the penalty had a slight impact on the game.
“We approach the third game with the same goal: to win it and finish first in the group.”
As Morocco’s captain Achraf Hakimi recovers from an ankle injury he sustained while playing for Paris Saint-Germain at the beginning of November, Achraf Hakimi, the African player of the year, was once more an unused substitute.
Mbappe keeps watch on
In the crowd of 63, 844, his former PSG teammate Kylian Mbappe, the current Real Madrid superstar and France captain, appeared to be sporting Hakimi’s number two on a shirt.
The Little Number 10 forced a good save from Mali goalkeeper Djigui Diarra on 17 minutes, and Diaz’s Real Madrid teammate was the main attraction on the pitch while Hakimi was on the sidelines. He then played a key role in the penalty that gave Mbappe the lead into the opening goal just before the break.
After a lengthy investigation into the pitchside VAR monitor, Mali defender Nathan Gassama eventually awarded a spot-kick following a lengthy look at the player. He attempted to stop Diaz from dribbling past him inside the box with his hand.
Soufiane Rahimi from Morocco saved a spot kick against Comoros, but Diaz deflected the ball in the wrong direction for his second goal of the tournament.
The best team in Africa, according to the FIFA rankings, couldn’t, however, as Mali won a penalty of their own shortly after the hour mark.
After being called over to check his screen, 29-year-old Cameroonian referee Abdoul Abdel Mefire awarded the penalty after a clumsy challenge by Jawad El Yami, q.
Auxerre striker Sinayoko kept his cool to savor the reward and restore parity after being accused of speaking to the referee in a public speech.
Source: Channels TV
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