BOUAKÉ, Côte d'Ivoire
Angolan striker, Cristovao Paciencia rescued a vital point for his side after converting from the spot to hold Algeria to a 1-1 stalemate at Bouake’s Stade De La Paix in their TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations Cote d’Ivoire 2023 Group C opener against the former champions on Monday evening.
The 2019 champions came into
the tie as favourites on paper and unsurprisingly pinned their opponents into
their own half from the opening whistle.
Fares Chaibi was the first to
ask questions of Adilson Cipriano in as early as the 6th minute
after doing well to connect with a Youcef Belaili cross for his volleyed effort
to go narrowly wide.
Belaili, who was a constant
threat to the Angolan defense almost opened the scoring charts in the eighth
minute after doing well to cut in from the left to unleash a powerful strike
that was fisted away by Cipriano.
The Desert Foxes were
eventually rewarded for their relentless attacks after a lobbed ball from the
back went over Kialonda Gaspar for 2019 title hero, Baghdad Bounedjah to
comfortably slot it into the bottom left corner.
Interestingly Bounedjah scored
Algeria’s opening goal in their first match of the 2019 edition against Kenya,
where they went on to win the title Egypt.
Coming back from the recess,
Angola’s game plan was to get balls into the danger area – a tactic that paid
dividends in the 68th minute when substitute, Cristovao
Paciencia converted from the spot kick after he was fouled in the box by Nabil
Bentaleb.
The evenly contested encounter
concluded with both sides sharing the spoils in front of a highly vocal Stade
De La Paix crowd.
Next for Algeria will be a
clash against Burkina Faso on Saturday at 14h00, while Angola face Mauritania
in the 20h00 Kick Off.
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