The first day of the group stage of CAN 2022 will not go down in the annals in terms of spectacle. Conversely, the day Wednesday fueled the idea of a total fiasco.
End of the Tunisia-Mali lunar match
End of the match… premature. Surrealist sequence Wednesday at the opening of Group F. As Mali led 1-0 against Tunisia in the 85th minute, Janny Sikazwe, the Zambian referee of the match, whistled the end of the match, causing the total incomprehension of the Limbé stadium. The players having resumed the match, the referee ended up whistling the end of the match again… in the 89th minute, a few seconds before the end of regulation time, and when each team had made five changes. The Tunisian bench then rose with a single man to show his anger in front of the referee, returned under escort to the locker room.
Referee of the CAN 2017 final, Mr. Sikazwe was suspended from a match for “suspicion of corruption” in 2018. Criticized several times for his refereeing, the Zambian is again in the spotlight, while a half hour after the events, while the match seemed to be able to resume, the Tunisians never returned to the field, certainly studying the possibility of an appeal.
Read alsoTrue-false recovery, referee exceeded, unreal end of the match … The sad spectacle during Mali-Tunisia
Mauritania deprived of an anthem
The half-hour lost in Tunisia-Mali delayed the kick-off of the Gambia-Mauritania group’s other match, which was supposed to be played on the same pitch an hour later. And to add spice to the first fiasco in Lomé, the organizers had the misfortune of using the wrong hymn for Mauritania. Not once, but twice, with the “master of ceremonies” (the speaker) invites the players of Didier Gomes da Rosa, the French coach of Mauritania, to sing a cappella. Which will never happen. Divided between embarrassed smiles and incomprehension, the Mourabitounes experienced hardly ideal preparation before surrendering against their opponent (0-1).
Read alsoCAN: the incredible fiasco of the anthems during Gambia-Mauritania
Tribunes vines
The attendance gauges were already a question (60% maximum fill for all matches except those of the host country, which benefits from a gauge pushed to 80%), but they were ultimately not of much use. Apart from the opening match, played in front of 48,000 spectators gathered in a festive atmosphere before, the stands of the CAN return a desperate image of emptiness.
And it is not the sequence of two matches on the same field – which then raises the question of the state of already deplorable lawns – which is in question. Several factors explain this observation, from a ticket price at least four times higher (1 euro for a championship match in Cameroon, minimum 4 euros at the CAN) to health measures, while a negative test is required to enter the compound, in a country where less than 3% of the population benefits from a complete vaccination schedule.
One goal per game … only
The opening match between Cameroon and Burkina Faso (2-1) will remain as the one and only match with more than one goal. A sad observation symbolized by an average of one goal per game in 12 games. Two blank draws, nine 1-0 victories and the hopeless feeling of a first day of the group stage without much spectacle, which only the lawns in bad condition and the demanding climatic conditions could not explain.
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