Tunisia end Madagascar’s AFCON cup run

Madagascar’s fairytale Africa Cup of Nations has finally ended after a quarter-final loss to Tunisia.

Second-half goals from Ferjani Sassi, Youssef Msakni and Naim Sliti was enough to see Tunisia through in a match where Madagascar rarely threatened.

For Madagascar, they defied expectations to get this far. Their qualification campaign started over two years ago in the preliminary round as one of the six lowest-ranked teams.

They then shocked Nigeria in the group stages before overcoming DR Congo in the second round with a team made up largely of players in France’s lower leagues.

Tunisia struggled to break down the Madagascar defence in the first half despite decent chances falling for Wahbi Khazri, Taha Khenissi and Ghailene Chaalali.

Sassi did open the scoring shortly after the restart, though, after good work from Msakni.

Msakni turned scorer to put the result beyond doubt on the hour mark when he was first to a rebound and Sliti added a third deep into stoppage time to cap off a strong Tunisia performance.

Tunisia will play Nigeria in the semi-final on Sunday.

Cover Photo: US Army Africa [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons