2021 Africa Cup of Nations: Comoros hold Egypt as Ghana edge to win

Egypt were held to their second successive draw of the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying as hosts Comoros battled to 0-0 stalemate.

Ghana made it two wins out of two but were made to work hard to edge past Sao Tome e Principe 1-0.

After their 1-1 draw with Kenya on Thursday in their opening Group G encounter Egypt held on for another point on Monday in Comoros.

The Pharaohs, once again without the injured Mohamed Salah, began well with Mahmoud ‘Kahraba’ Abdel-Moneim firing a shot against the bar after nine minutes.

Two minutes later they had another good chance after the Comoros keeper was ruled to have picked up a back pass only for the resulting indirect freekick to be blocked and cleared by the hosts’ defence.

Both sides had their best opportunities to break the deadlock midway through the second haff.

Firstly Aston Villa’s Trezeguet was put through for a one-on-one with the keeper only to stab his effort wide of the post.

Minutes later Kassim M’Dahoma jinxed his way into the area and his shot was blocked a little fortuitously by keeper Mohamed El Shenawy’s shoulder as he dived to make the save.

The game was played in intensely hot conditions with the referee allowing official water breaks in both halves of the match.

The result means Comoros are now on four points from their two matches, after their win in Togo, while Egypt are on two.

Ghana scored a second-half penalty to edge past Sao Tome 1-0 and take them top of Group C.

The Black Stars struggled to break down a resolute Sao Tome defence until just after the break when Emmanuel Boateng was fouled in the area to allow Crystal Palace forward Jordan Ayew to score the winner.

The result means Ghana have the maximum six points from two games, South Africa and Sudan are on three while Sao Tome are pointless.

The top two sides in 11 of the 12 groups will all advance to the 2021 finals in Cameroon.

Cameroon qualify for the finals as hosts but are taking part in the qualifying campaign to gain competitive match practice which means just one team from Group F will progress to the finals.

2021 Africa Cup of Nations results:

Monday:

• Sao Tome and Principe 0-1 Ghana (Group C)
• The Gambia v DR Congo (Group D)
• Cape Verde v Mozambique (Group F)
• Comoros 0-0 Egypt (Group G)
• Kenya v Togo (Group G)
• Botswana v Algeria (Group H)

Sunday:

• Chad 0-2 Mali (Group A)
• Guinea 2-0 Namibia (Group A)
• South Sudan 1-2 Burkina Faso (Group B)
• Uganda 2-0 Malawi (Group B)
• South Africa 1-0 Sudan (Group C)
• Gabon 2-1 Angola (Group D)
• Rwanda 0-1 Cameroon (Group F)
• Eswatini 1-4 Senegal (Group I)
• Congo 3-0 Guinea Bissau (Group I)
• Benin 1-0 Sierra Leone (Group L)
• Lesotho 2-4 Nigeria (Group L)

source: BBC