Tunisia’s Ligue 1 Professionnelle kicked off the Championship Group of the 2022-23 season on Wednesday and Thursday with eight clubs in contention to become domestic champions. The home team won in three of the four matches played but defending champions Espérance ST were the only team to win away from home with a 2-1 result at US Ben Guerdane on Thursday. Anice Badri scored on both sides of halftime to help the Blood and Gold overcome Ayoub Chaabane’s opening strike for USBG in the 30th minute.
The top clubs in the group stage completed earlier this season gained four points to start off the Championship Stage, meaning EST as Group A winners are level on seven points with Group B winners US Monastir who defeated US Tataouine 1-0 on Thursday. A clinical strike from Zied Aloui shortly after the half hour mark gave USM a victory to announce their intentions of dethroning EST, something that escaped them on the final day last season.
Elsewhere there were victories on Wednesday for Club Africain and Étoile du Sahel. Club Africain moved into fourth position on four points with a 1-0 result against Olympique Béja courtesy of Ahmed Khalil’s goal. Étoile, runners up in Group A behind rivals EST, defeated CS Sfaxien 1-0 to move into third position one point behind EST and USM.
Highlights from all four matches are below.
Photo from the website of Espérance ST
Scores
Étoile du Sahel 1-0 CS Sfaxien
Club Africain 1-0 Olympique Béja
US Ben Guerdane 1-2 Espérance ST
US Monastir 1-0 US Tataouine
Highlights
US Ben Guerdane 1-2 Espérance ST
US Monastir 1-0 US Tataouine
Étoile du Sahel 1-0 CS Sfaxien
Club African 1-0 Olympique Béja
