IFFHS FACTS WAFCON FIRST ROUND
Picture : Ghizlane Chebbak, best Goalscorer and one of the best Players.
Facts & Figures of WAFCON First Round
Begun on Saturday 2 July, the 14th TotalEnergies Women’s Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2022 has, in ten days, offered the world exciting football. This should certainly be the same opinion of FIFA and CAF chieftains, Gianni Infantino and Patrice Motsepe who were present at the sumptuous Opening Ceremonies hosted by Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium.
18 matches were played in the first round with a total of 48 goals scored in this order: group A hosted by the Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium, Rabat, 13 goals; group B at the Mohamed V Stadium, 15 goals ; and group C at the Moulay Hassan FUS, 20 goals. That gave 2.7 goals/match for the round; 2.2 goals/match for group A; 2.5 goals/match for group B; and 3.3 goals/match for group C.
Morocco and South Africa registered perfect runs, winning all their three matches. Morocco munched Burkina Faso(1-0), Uganda(3-1) and Senegal(1-0). South Africa disposed of Nigeria(2-1), Burundi(3-1) and Botswana(1-0).
The games with the most number of goals were: Botswana 4 2 Burundi; Tunisia 4 1 Togo; Zambia 4 1 Togo; Nigeria 4 0 Burundi; Burundi 1 3 South Africa; Burkina Faso 2 2 Uganda. Meanwhile, the game Cameroon vs Zambia registered no goals.
The teams with the best attacks were: Nigeria(7 goals), South Africa(6 goals), Zambia(5 goals). And the credit for the best defense went to Cameroon and Nigeria who each took a goal.
While Tunisian forward Mariem Houij keeps the record for the fastest goal in the history of the tournament with her first minute strike against Togo, Morocco captain, Ghizlane Chebbak was the highest goal scorer with 3 goals to her credit. 8 of the goals were scored from the penalty spot and 1 was an own goal.
No player received the Woman-of-the-Match award more than once.
A total of 3 red cards and 60 yellow cards have been issued to sanction illicit play. The dirtiest games were: Cameroon vs Togo – 7 yellow cards; Zambia vs Togo – 6 yellow cards; Cameroon vs Tunisia – 6 yellow cards; Morocco vs Burkina Faso – 5 yellow cards; Botswana vs Burundi – 5 yellow cards. The side with the worst sense of fair play was Togo with 10 yellow cards. South Africa got the cleanest record with just a yellow card.
Certainly more would go down in the annals of the tournament when the quarterfinals get underway this Wednesday and Thursday according to the fixtures: Wednesday(Zambia vs Senegal at 6 p.m. ; Morocco vs Botswana at 9 p.m.), and Thursday(Cameroon vs Nigeria at 6 p.m. ; South Africa vs Tunisia at 9 p.m.)