Morocco, Tunisia Start With Victories Friday’s action at the FIFA U-17 World Cup saw two of Africa’s representatives redeem the opening day loss suffered by the continent’s champions, Cote d’Ivoire, who fell 1-0 to Italy on Thursday; as Tunisia and Morocco both stole shock victories on the second day of action in United Arab Emirates. In contrast with CIV’s slump, Morocco, playing in their first ever FIFA U-17 World Cup, pulled off a sensational 3-1 win over well-fancied Croatia in their first Group C game in Fujairah. Karim Achahbar out-shined pre-tournament golden boy Alen Halilovic on the day, scoring a pair of goals in an historic win for these Atlas Lion Cubs. The striker from French club, Guingamp struck his first after 27 minutes when he slammed the ball into the roof of the net from a neat pulled-back pass. He repeated the dose 13 minutes later as the Croats looked frail in the back and unable to effectively clear their lines. A clever bit of interplay between Walid Sabbar and Omar Arjoune picked out Achahbar alone in front of goal, where he made no mistake. Nabil Jaadi made it 3-0 at the break when he raced straight up the right side and slammed the ball into the top corner of the net, with hardly any resistance from the Croatian rearguard. In the simultaneous match, an impressive defensive display by Tunisians kept out Venezuela, who are also playing in their first U-17 World Cup. Tunisia were helped a great deal by Venezuela goalkeeper, Enmis Rodriguez, who misjudged the flight of a simple ball to allow Chiheb Jbeli to collect and pass into an open net. The Venezuelans were given a lifeline in the dying minutes of the first period when Sabri Akrout was shown a second yellow card and promptly given his marching orders. However, it was the north Africans who started the second-half sharper, despite being down a man. Mohamed Ben Larbi hit home from the spot in the 47th minute after Diego Osio committed a clear foul in the area. The South Americans responded straight away, though, with Marquez scoring the nation’s first-ever goal at a FIFA U-17 World Cup when he blistered a low shot into the corner.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 17:16:28 +0000
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