Senegal win in dominant performance
Senegal and Qatar met in their final Group C clash at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Hamilton. Despite an early push from Qatar, Senegal controlled the play and walked away with the win and reach the knockout stages of the tournament.
Goals from Alhassane Sylla and Moussa Kone were enough to see Senegal win 2-1 and take the three points from their FIFA U-20 World Cup Group C clash against Qatar at Waikato Stadium.
The win sees Senegal reach the elimination stages of the tournament, and Qatar knocked out.
Senegal dictated play for the majority of the match on June 6, with momentum swinging to Qatar in the half hour before half time.
Chances went begging at both ends of the park in an aggressive opening 20 minutes.
On the back of a good move to put Akram Afif in space, the Qatari midfielder was brought down in the penalty area in the 16th minute, and made no mistake from the spot.
“We immediately tried to react and tried to equalise very fast,” Senegal coach Joseph Koto said.
“However, this is the wrong attitude and I did not want my players to do this.”
The half was characterised by both teams’ forwards not being able to find that final pass or keep their shots down.
Clearly frustrated, the Senegal team began committing foul after foul, giving the first half a very stop-start feeling, and seeing defender Moussa Wague booked for a clumsy tackle in the 34th minute.
The second half saw Senegal get a lot more physical and much more aggressive in attack.
Qatar had little in the way of offensive possession, and did little with it when they did have it.
From the outset, it was clear Senegal were rattled by going into the break down a goal, and would do everything they could to draw level.
They did just this in the 76th minute when captain Alhassane Sylla chipped the keeper following a goal mouth scramble.
Pushing for a place in the round of 16, they kept hammering the Qatari defence, who were solid for the most part.
A second goal was netted by Moussa Kone in the 81st minute after the forwards linked up to feed a ball across goal, which Kone converted with ease.
“We really want to congratulate Qatar,” Koto said.
“They made it extremely tough for us today [and] they played a lot of good football on the pitch.”
