Nicolas Jackson \u200bscored four minutes before halftime and Ismaila Sarr added a second in the 54th as \u200cSenegal won their first game since January\u2019s Cup of Nations final, when they beat Morocco only to be stripped of the title this month.<\/p>\n
The Confederation of African Football\u2019s Appeal Board awarded Morocco the Cup of Nations title after Senegal had staged a 14-minute walk \u200boff during the final in Rabat, a decision that Senegal is contesting at the Court of Arbitration \u200bfor Sport.<\/p>\n
An hour before kick off in Paris on Saturday, Senegal\u2019s players and coach \u2060Pape Bouna Thiaw walked around the pitch with the trophy to a delirious reception from a near-capacity crowd \u200bas they continue to scoff at the CAF decision.<\/p>\n
Thiaw had declared on Friday that \u201cwe know we\u2019re African champions\u201d \u200band the team wore a newly designed strip featuring two stars above their badge, representing success in the Cup of Nations in 2021 and again this year.<\/p>\n
Jackson had an easy put-away for the first goal after a storming run down the right wing \u200bby Senegal\u2019s teenage starlet Ibrahima Mbaye, taking over the attacking mantle with Sadio Mane absent.<\/p>\n
Sarr latched onto a \u200bricocheted ball that fell perfectly into his path but had to power past two defenders before scoring the second goal.<\/p>\n
There \u200cwas also \u2060a convincing win for the Ivory Coast as they hammered South Korea 4-0 at Stadium MK, north of London, on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Like Senegal, the Ivorians are among the nine African countries who will compete at the World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the US starting in June.<\/p>\n
Evann Guessand scuffed home the first goal in the 35th \u200bminute after being set up \u200bby debutant Martial Godo, \u2060who then scored the third himself from a rebound at a corner after 62 minutes.<\/p>\n
In between, Simon Adingra announced his return to the team with a rasping shot \u200bon the stroke of halftime to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n
He had been omitted from \u200bthe squad for \u2060the Cup of Nations in Morocco at the turn of the year, where the Ivorians were defending their title but went out in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
Defender Wilfried Singo, another player back in the squad, side-footed the fourth goal with the \u2060last \u200bkick of the game.<\/p>\n
The Ivorians next face Scotland at Everton\u2019s Hill \u200bDickinson Stadium in Liverpool, while Senegal head home to play neighbours Gambia in Dakar on Tuesday where they are expected to again brandish \u200bthe golden trophy in front of their home support.<\/p>\n
–SABC–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":30241,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,20],"class_list":["post-30240","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Senegal defiantly displayed the Africa Cup of Nations trophy to their supporters on Saturday before going on to beat Peru 2-0 in their World Cup warm-up game at the Stade de France","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30240","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\/30240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30242,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/30240\/revisions\/30242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=30240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}