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Mali and Ivory Coast played out a thriller featuring red cards, a penalty, dramatic late goals and even assault on the referee
AFCON 2023 hosts Ivory Coast pulled the chestnut out of the fire against Mali to secure a semifinal berth after conceding an early penalty and getting a player sent off in the first half.
Mali took the lead through Nene Dorgeles, but had their hearts broken by two late goals in normal and extra time from Simon Adingra and Oumar Diakite.
How it happened
The first clear sign of danger for Ivory Coast came after only 12 minutes when Mali claimed a penalty after a handball in the box by Odilon Kossounou.
After a VAR review, the penalty was revoked following an offside call, but Kossounou did not heed the warning from the previous incident as he again committed a foul in the box just five minutes later, this time recklessly bringing down Lassine Sinayoko in the box.
This time there was no VAR intervention to rule out the penalty, but the hosts were still let off the hook as Adama ‘Noss’ Traore was denied from the spot by Yahia Fofana.
Kossounou’s match went from bad to worse as he was sent off before the end of the first half for a second bookable offence to end one of the worst individual displays in AFCON history.
Despite the red card, Ivory Coast went into the break on level terms, and lasted until the 77th minute before being broken by the Malian Eagles after a brilliant strike from Nene Dorgeles.
Just when the game appeared to be heading towards a famous win for Mali, Ivory Coast found an unlikely equaliser through Simon Adingra with only two minutes of normal time left to send the game into extra time.
After a drab 30 minutes of extra time, the Ivorians were rewarded for staying in the game until that point with a sensational winner in extra time added time as Oumar Diakite flicked on a shot by Seko Fofana to find the back of the net and send fans in the Stade Olympique Alassane Ouattara into a frenzy.
In the aftermath of the dramatic winner, Diakite was sent off for a second yellow card after taking off his shirt in the celebrations, while Mali’s Hamari Traore was also shown a red card for attacking the referee.
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