Zebras favoured to clinch group stage berth
Mqondisi Dube | Tuesday June 3, 2014 15:52
Zimbabwe suffered a 3-2 aggregate defeat to Tanzania to crash out while Liberia fell to fast improving Lesotho.
Malawi narrowly survived when they lost 3-1 away to Chad after winning the first leg 2-0. Namibia fell by the wayside after losing 3-1 on aggregate to Congo, while Swaziland was eliminated by Sierra Leone. When the guns fell silent, only Malawi, Lesotho, Mozambique and the Zebras were left standing from the region.
However, the Zebras did not have an easy time and needed Kabelo Dambe’s quick thinking for the goal that settled the match. Dambe picked out his captain, Joel Mogorosi on the run. The Bloemfontein Celtic winger paced past two defenders before depositing the ball home. The Zebras then endured some frustrating moments as Burundi simply refused to lie down with some immaculate passing in the middle.
Pint-sized Burundian captain, Said Ntibazonkiza was conductor-in-chief of the orchestra, which threatened to spoil the music for the locals. But Peter Butler’s boys hung on for dear life to book a date against lowly ranked Guinea Bissau. The Zebras’ next opponents prevailed 3-1 on aggregate over Central Africa Republic.
The strongly built West Africans visit the Zebras on the weekend of July 19, before the return leg in a fortnight.
Guinea Bissau is ranked 49th in Africa out of the 54 CAF countries and should not provide much competition for the Zebras who are sitting in position 22.
It will be the first ever meeting between the two countries. Butler has shown his readiness to experiment after completing 180 minutes in his first two official assignments without a recognised target man. In both instances, he played winger, Mogorosi in that role.
Full weekend results:
Comoros 1 - 1 Kenya, South Sudan 0 - 0 Mozambique, Rwanda 3 - 0 Libya, Chad 3 - 1 Malawi, Uganda 1 - 0 Madagascar, Guinea-Bissau 3 - 1 Central African Republic, Sierra Leone 1 - 0
Swaziland, Zimbabwe 2 - 2 Tanzania, Botswana 1 - 0 Burundi, Lesotho 2 - 0 Liberia, Congo
3 - 0 Namibia, Benin 2 - 0 Sao Tome e Principe, Equatorial Guinea 3 - 0 Mauritania