adminSenior Sports Editor
SWAZILAND stunned fancied Guinea 2-1 in Morocco last night to provide the fireworks as the 2017 Nations Cup finals got underway. The West Africans were favoured to dominate Group L, which also features Zimbabwe and Malawi, who clash in the first game in Blantyre today.
Guinea are playing their home matches in Morocco because the West African nation hasn’t been cleared to host international football matches by CAF because of the Ebola virus outbreak.
In one of the biggest upsets in African football, Tony Tsabedze was the hero for the Swazis with a double strike that thrust them top of the group pending the outcome of the match between the Warriors and the Flames.
Tsabedze struck the winner six minutes before the end of regulation time for a memorable victory by the men from Southern Africa.
He pushed Swaziland into the lead in the 18th minute and they held on to that advantage until the 68th minute when Francois Kamano equalised for the Syli Nationale.
That equaliser should have given the West Africans the advantage but the plucky Swazis battled back and grabbed the winner in the 84th minute with the impressive Tsabedze getting the priceless goal.
Guinea are familiar to the conditions in Morocco, having used the North African country as their home ground as they qualified for the 2015 Nations Cup finals in a group that featured Ghana, Togo and Uganda.
But they will feel the pain of this huge loss, which would be cheered in Harare and Blantyre, given that Guinea were the favourites, before the qualifiers went underway, as the seeded team in the group.
Group L log
P W D L F A Pts
Swaziland 1 1 0 0 2 1 3
Malawi 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
ZIMBABWE 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Guinea 1 0 0 1 1 2 0
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