MOROCCO
\nRunners-up to South Africa four years ago, took the lead after 31 minutes when Sakina Ouzraoui volleyed her second goal of the tournament over goalkeeper Kaylin Swart. Hanane Ait El Hajj doubled the advantage six minutes into the second half after Morocco were awarded a penalty for Noxolo Cesane\u2019s challenge on Ghizlane Chebbak.
\nSouth Africa, who won the WAFCON title in 2022, pulled one back through Thembi Kgatlana in the 67th minute after a lengthy video review overturned an initial offside decision. Kgatlana had earlier gone close in the first half and has now scored nine WAFCON goals since making her tournament debut in 2018.
\nMorocco held on for victory and will face the winner of Sunday\u2019s quarter-final between defending champions Nigeria and Cameroon in Wednesday\u2019s semifinal. Algeria turn tide after red card In Casablanca, Ivory Coast took the lead after 29 minutes through Ines Konan but lost momentum when 18-year-old N\u2019Sira Ouedraogo was sent off in the 41st minute for kicking Algeria goalkeeper Chloe N\u2019Gazi in the face.
\nAlgeria, who had barely threatened during the opening 45 minutes, seized control after the break. Substitute Ines Khiri equalized before Amira Ould Braham completed the comeback six minutes later to put Algeria into the semifinals.
\nIvory Coast missed a chance to restore their lead when Rebecca Elloh struck the post from a second-half penalty with the score level at 1-1. The result marked Algeria\u2019s first qualification for the Women\u2019s World Cup. They will meet the winner of Ghana and Malawi in Wednesday\u2019s semifinal.
\nWorld Cup hopes remain alive for quarter-final losers South Africa and Ivory Coast still have a route to the World Cup despite their defeats. The two losing quarter-finalists will play on Thursday for places in the inter-confederation playoff tournament, where Africa has three additional World Cup berths available.
\nSouth Africa will face the loser of Nigeria-Cameroon, while Ivory Coast will meet the loser of Ghana-Malawi. Morocco and Algeria will now try to go one step further in a tournament that has never been won by a north African nation.
\nNigeria dominate the competition with a record 10 titles, while Equatorial Guinea have won twice and South Africa once since the tournament began in 1998.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOROCCO Runners-up to South Africa four years ago, took the lead after 31 minutes when Sakina Ouzraoui volleyed her second goal of the tournament over goalkeeper Kaylin Swart. Hanane Ait El Hajj doubled the advantage six minutes into the second half after Morocco were awarded a penalty for Noxolo Cesane\u2019s challenge on Ghizlane Chebbak. South …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":101472,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101508,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101470\/revisions\/101508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}