An evening that saw two 2 out of the three host nations bow out; it was not a night to banter in East Africa. Kenya and Tanzania exited the CHAN 2024 the same night as Morocco and Madagascar knocked them out of the tournament.
Kenya was first to suffer the heartbreak after Madagascar dragged the game to penalties and knocked them out on penalties 4-2. Benni McCarthy’s men had taken the lead in the first half, but Madagascar leveled from the penalty spot to drag the game to the 12-yard decider.
It will be heartbreak for Kenyans who filled the Moi Sport cafe stadium, Nairobi to the brim, and joy for Tanzanians who enjoyed watching Kenya being knocked out. Their joy, however, did not last long as Morocco knocked the Taifa Stars out in front of 41,600 fans, including the country’s prime minister, who was in the stadium.
Meanwhile, the Tanzania-Morocco game ended goalless in the first half, with Tanzania missing a few chances they got. Morocco came out in the second half to strike the dagger straight into the hearts of the Tanzanians via Oussama Lamlaoui’s deft touch from the near post.
Watch as Morocco celebrates their win.
Lamlaoui is now the highest goal scorer of the tournament with 4 goals, leaving behind already knocked out Thabisa Kutumela of South Africa; although Uganda’s Okella is yet to play.
McCarthy’s pride, even in the CHAN 2024 defeat
Despite their exit, the Harambee Stars ‘ head coach of the team, Benni McCarthy, is full of pride with what his team has achieved. The South African could not hide his excitement in the disappointing moment.
However, McCarthy had this to say after the game:
Nothing but proud of what we achieved. The players gave everything every single day in training and every match,
It was really good but football is like that, the lottery of penalties sometimes doesn’t go your way.
“It could have been anyone’s game. We are fairly open disappointed we couldn’t take the chances we had. When you miss your chances at the end of the day you are punished
We feel disappointed now but when you look back and see what we achieved topping the toughest group, today was just one hurdle too many
We are disappointed now but tomorrow when I sit down and think about it, I will be really proud that we were able to come this far and hopefully we can work in a good way moving forward to ensure the national team is strong
Moroccan boss learnt from CHAN 2024 Kenya defeat
The Moroccan boss, Tarik Sektioui’s reflection on the win against Tanzania was simple and one learned from experience. Furthermore, when the Atlas Lions lost 1-0 to Kenya in the group stages. Tarik said the game plan was to hold them and hit on the break. He explains:
Against Kenya, we played 10 men, controlled the possession but we could not score. Today it was tougher, 11 against 11, we just needed to sit back and use our experience to win the game.
You can watch Tarik’s post-match analysis on the NPFL Tori Podcast YouTube page
With Tanzania and Kenya knocked out, Uganda will be hoping to flip the script as they face Senegal, while Sudan plays Algeria for the last two places in the semifinals.