{"id":21926,"date":"2026-01-04T06:36:39","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T04:36:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/mali-defeat-tunisia-on-penalties-to-book-quarter-final-place\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:32:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:32:52","slug":"mali-defeat-tunisia-on-penalties-to-book-quarter-final-place","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/mali-defeat-tunisia-on-penalties-to-book-quarter-final-place\/","title":{"rendered":"Mali defeat Tunisia on penalties to book quarter-final place"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tunisia striker Firas Chaouat gave his side the lead in the 88th minute as he lost his marker to guide a deep cross from Elias Saad into the net. However, Mali were awarded a penalty in stoppage time when substitute defender Yassine Meriah inexplicably used his arm to deflect the ball from a free-kick, and Lassine Sinayoko netted in the 97th minute to send the game to extra time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mali had been reduced to 10 men in the 26th minute when Woyo Coulibaly stamped on the ankle of Tunisia&#8217;s Hannibal Mejbri, and could have few complaints, but they put in a battling performance to snatch the win in the shootout.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Quite remarkably, Mali advance to the quarter-finals having not yet won a game at the tournament in Morocco. They drew all three of their Group A fixtures but finished runners-up in the pool, and drew against Tunisia in Casablanca.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>They will face West African rivals Senegal in Tangier on Friday, after the latter earlier defeated Sudan 3-1 to advance to the last eight.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21927,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-21926","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Goalkeeper Djigui Diarra saved twice in the shootout to help 10-man Mali to a 3-2 win via penalties after a 1-1 last-16 draw with Tunisia in Casablanca on Saturday and book an Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final with Senegal.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Goalkeeper Djigui Diarra saved twice in the shootout to help 10-man Mali to a 3-2 win via penalties after a 1-1 last-16 draw with Tunisia in Casablanca on Saturday and book an Africa Cup of Nations quarter-final with Senegal.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25407,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/21926\/revisions\/25407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=21926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}