RABAT
\nFrance great Zinedine Zidane watched his goalkeeper son\u2019s safe hands as Algeria started its Africa Cup of Nations campaign with a 3-0 win over 10-man Sudan on Wednesday. Riyad Mahrez scored twice and the 20-year-old Ibrahim Maza scored his first international goal for Algeria, one of the tournament favorites, to move top of Group E.
\n\u201cThe most important thing was to start with a win,\u201d Mahrez said. \u201cThe last two AFCONs, we didn\u2019t start good. Today, we really wanted to make it happen and we did.\u201d Zidane, who was at the sweet-smelling Moulay El Hassan Stadium in Rabat to see his son Luca Zidane playing in the Algeria goal, was feted by the crowd every time he was shown on the big screens.
\nLuca Zidane opted to represent his grandfather\u2019s country after getting the Fennec Foxes\u2019 invitation and he\u2019s been given his chance to shine because of an injury to Alexandre Oukidja, who might have been expected to start otherwise. Algeria wasted little time Wednesday with Mahrez sweeping in the opener in the second minute after unselfish play from Hicham Boudaoui to set him up.
\nZidane was called into action shortly afterward to deny Yaser Awad on a break. Sudan had to play all its qualification games away from home because of the near 1,000-day old civil war ravaging the country. Though the Algerians looked confident and played with intensity, the big chances fell at the other end, with Zidane saving again from Awad before Abdel Raouf fired over.
\nSalah Adil was sent off just as the rain began to fall shortly before the break with his second yellow card for a foul on Rayan A\u00eft-Nouri, who would have been through otherwise.But the Algerian fans, who were in a majority, needed to be patient.
\nMohammed Amoura produced a brilliant cross with the outside of his boot for Mahrez to score in the 61st, and Baghdad Bounedjah headed the ball into Maza\u2019s path for the substitute to complete the scoring in the 85th. Edmond Tapsoba completed a remarkable turnaround as Burkina Faso scored two goals in stoppage time to beat 10-man Equatorial Guinea 2-1 in the early Group E game.
\nTapsoba\u2019s team had pushed hard for the opening goal after Basilio Ndong was sent off early in the second half for a bad challenge on Bertrand Traor\u00e9\u2019s ankle. Marvin Anieboh then stunned the Stallions when he launched himself at Carlos Akapo\u2019s cross to score with a looping header in the 85th minute.
\nGeorgi Minoungou equalized in the fifth minute of stoppage time and Tapsoba headed the winner three minutes after that. Later Wednesday in Group F, defending champion Ivory Coast began its title defense against Mozambique in Marrakech and five-time champion Cameroon opened against Gabon in the coastal city of Agadir.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RABAT France great Zinedine Zidane watched his goalkeeper son\u2019s safe hands as Algeria started its Africa Cup of Nations campaign with a 3-0 win over 10-man Sudan on Wednesday. Riyad Mahrez scored twice and the 20-year-old Ibrahim Maza scored his first international goal for Algeria, one of the tournament favorites, to move top of Group …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":91575,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91562","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\/91562","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=91562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91576,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91562\/revisions\/91576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}