By

Eniola Olatunji 

The African Football Cup of Nations AFCON tournament saw perhaps the most dramatic and volatile match between hosts, Morocco and the Eagles of Mali played in Rabat on Friday night end 1-1 draw amidst protests and leg brawl.

A peas awarded in the 45+2 minutes to Morocco after both sides struggled to break even but in the process of taking the kick, Abdoulaye Diaby of Mali was giving a yellow card for leading the Malian protest over the award of the kick to Morocco.

At the 45+5th minutes, Brahim Diaz of Morocco stepped forward to beat Goalkeeper Djigul Diarra in goal for Mali and scoreboard read. MOROCCO 1 MALI 0.

Mali ought to be awarded a penalty kick in the 59th minute when  Lassine Sinayoko was badly brought down by a Moroccan defender in the box.

The hosts tried to typical of North African style of manipulative moves cancel an obvious penalty but virtually all Malian players pursued the Ref in protest only for the Ref to decide to continue the game.

A forced reference to the  use of VAR at 61st minute gave Mali the penalty which was scored by  Lassine Sinayoko himself for the scoreboard to read 1-1.

Despite 12 added minutes to the second half, no team was able to score in the highly tensed encounter.

Morocco had 15-2 shots at goal with 5-1 on target getting 6-0 corner kicks while holding ball possession of 59-41% but it was obvious Mali did not come for neat game rather choosing to frustrate the hosts with 22-12 foul calls on Mali that brought 8-1 yellow cards.

The hosts had announced free entry to football fans after matches would have started to encourage attendance and remove camera shots of virtually empty stands.

Earlier in same group A, Comoros forced Zambia to a barren draw in an encounter right in Casablanca rekindled the growing rivalry between both countries.

Zambia had no single shot at goal when Comoros had one; Zambia had 6-2 corner kicks meaning they are not good with set pieces and there were 2-0 yellow cards against Zambia. 

Records show that in their last five games the two countries won two matches each and drew one with very very low score lines. 

Morocco still topped group A table with 4 points scoring 3 goals and conceding one, Mali is 2nd with 2 points scoring 2 goals and conceding 2; Zambia is 3rd with 2 points scoring one goal and conceding one while Comoros is at the bottom with one point no goal and conceding 2 goals.

The last of group A matches will be played simultaneously on Monday 29th at 8pm when Zambia will jam Morocco and Comoros will try to maul Mali to survive.

Today Saturday, Group D matches will see Benin versus Botswana at 1:30pm; Senegal tackles DR Congo at 4pm. In Group C, Uganda and Tanzania will line up against each other while Nigeria and Tunisia will try and hide their soccer hostilities at 9pm. Both Nigeria and Tunisia has a record of boycotting two matches between them at AFCON finals before.