It appears to be Senegal’s tournament to lose at this point as the Lion Cubs eased to another dominant victory at the 2023 Africa U-20 Cup of Nations, defeating Tunisia 3-0 to secure their spot in the final on Monday. Pape Demba Diop scored his tournament-leading fifth goal in the opening ten minutes before two strikes from star midfielder Lamine Camara completed the job for the Senegalese who will face the winner of Monday’s later semifinal between Nigeria and The Gambia. Senegal have scored on twelve occasions while conceding zero goals during their five matches in Egypt so far.
Senegal came out eager to establish their dominance and two goals inside the opening twenty minutes delivered a crushing blow to their Tunisian opposition. Diop opened the scoring in the 7th minute when he collected a pass outside the Tunisian penalty area from Souleymane Basse and unleashed a beautiful curling strike past Tunisia goalkeeper Raed Gezzah.
The news got worse for the Tunisian team ten minutes later when poor passing in the defense resulted in a back pass towards Gezzah from Zinedine Sassi that was left short, allowing Camara to swoop in and beat the keeper to the ball with a sliding finish. Tunisia rallied for the remainder of the first half but could not find a goal to trouble Senegal with Ali Saoudi coming closest when he met Mohamed Dhaoui’s 32nd minute corner kick with a header that went just wide.
Any hopes Tunisia had of coming back in the second half were quickly extinguished when Camara scored his second in the 52nd minute. Another poor giveaway by Tunisia in their own half allowed Souleymane Faye to dribble in and set up Samba Diallo for two shots that were denied by Gezzah. However the rebound from Diallo’s second attempt fell to Camara near the penalty spot where the FC Metz player fired low past Gezzah to finish Tunisia off.
Highlights are below.
