Ivory Coast and Cameroon share the spoils in Afcon clash of the heavyweights

African football heavyweights Ivory Coast and Cameroon played out to a thrilling 1-1 draw in front of a well attended and a bitterly cold Marrakesh Stadium on Sunday night.

This share of the spoils does not come at a huge cost for the Indomitable Lions and the Elephants as they maintain their first and second spots in Group F respectively.

They have four points from two matches and they will be favourites to close out the group stages with respective wins over less fancied Mozambique and Gabon on Wednesday.

Ivory Coast were the first to settle in the match by creating most of the chances with attackers Franck Kessie, Amad Diallo, Seko Fofana and Yan Diomande on the forefront.

Cameroon also had their chances on the offensive with attackers Christian Kofane, Bryan Mbeumo and Junior Tchamadeu threatening the Ivory Coast defence marshalled by Odilon Kossounou, Evan Ndicka and Ghislain Konan.

Cameroon nearly came close to opening the scoring after 21 minutes when Kofane unleashed a powerful shot that struck the crossbar after a good attacking move.

As the match edged towards the break, two big chances came the way of Ivory Coast with Vakoun Issouf Bayo and Diallo failing to find the target from good positions.

Cameroon came back the brightest after the break with attacks on the Ivory Coast defence and in one of those early attacks, Danny Namaso came close to finding the back of the net with a close range snap shot.

A few minutes later, Ivory Coast thought they found the opener but VAR ruled Kessie’s goal for offside and there was another highlight shortly after when Namaso was denied by the crossbar on the other side of the field.

The goal finally came after 50 minutes when Manchester United star attacker Diallo controlled the ball outside the area, despite attention from Nouhou Tolo, before unleashing a curling shot that gave Devis Epassy no chance.

Their lead did not last long as Tchamadeu pulled one back when his speculative shot deflected off the foot of Junior Malone to beat Ivory Coast goalkeeper goalkeeper Yahia Fofana.

They settled for the share of the spoils but they will be under pressure from Mozambique who have three points after they beat Gabon 2-1 in the earlier match t register their first win at the tournament after 17 attempts.

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