Salah leads Egypt to qualify for World Cup qualifiers playoffs

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Egypt entered the playoffs of the African World Cup qualifiers after falling 2-0 behind Angola in a 2-2 draw on Friday.

This ensured that Egypt won Group F with one remaining game and deprived Gabon of the chance to grab a place in the decisive final group stage in Egypt next week.

Thanks to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s penalty kick early in the second half, Gabon defeated Libya 1-0 a few hours before the start of the Angola-Egypt match. It ended Libya’s hopes of entering the playoffs and allowed Gabon’s weak opportunity to continue.

Egypt participated in the game, knew it only needed a draw, and found itself behind 2-0 after 36 minutes. But the goals of Mohamed Elneny and Akram Tawfik-both created by captain Mohamed Salah-won the tie.

Egypt has joined Morocco, Senegal and Mali, who have already qualified for the playoffs with 10 teams in March. Only the winner of the group stage can advance to the African playoffs, and the other six teams will decide the winner at the end of the group stage on Tuesday.

The five winners of the two rounds of the playoffs will be African representatives participating in the World Cup in Qatar.

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Algeria’s 4-0 victory over Djibouti put the defending African champions on the brink of the playoffs. The Algerians now only need to draw at home in the last Group A match against Burkina Faso on Tuesday. The latter can replace Algeria with a victory, thus laying a stand for the group stage.

Youcef Belaïli won Algeria’s opener against Djibouti in the 29th minute, one minute after the penalty save. Saïd Benrahma and Sofiane Feghouli scored each other within two minutes at the end of the first half. Islam Slimani entered as a second half substitute and scored his seventh goal in the group stage in the fourth quarter.

Slimani was the top scorer in the African qualifiers. Algeria scored 23 goals in 5 games and lost 2 goals.

Burkina Faso still has a chance to take the playoff spot against Algeria next week, but Burkina Faso must now win in Algeria after a 1-1 home draw with Niger on Friday.

Both goals came from penalty points-Niger’s Youssouf Oumarou and Burkina Faso’s Issoufou Dayo equalized-but the Burkina Faso players finally left the court with their heads down because they knew they made it harder. progress.

There were two other qualifiers in Africa on Friday, none of which had any impact on the playoffs. Morocco, which had passed, defeated Sudan 3-0. Guinea, already eliminated, and Guinea-Bissau drew 0-0.

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