Shaping up

The Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers reached its final stages while The Asian qualifiers for the World Cup began to give a clearer picture of the automatic qualifiers and in South America their World Cup qualifiers moved into the second half of fixtures.

Botswana upset hosts Cape Verde 1-0 while Burkina Faso bounced back from an early goal to celebrate qualification in front of their home crowd by thumping Burundi 4-1 with a double from Dango Ouattara and Eswatini picked up a useless point in their 1-1 draw in Mozambique. Tunisia were stunned 1-0 at home to Comoros and Ivory Coast suffered the same fate against Sierra Leone in Liberia while Rwanda were beaten 3-0 by Benin in Ivory Coast but came from behind to win 2-1 in their own backyard. Maschak Elia scored 2 late goals in Tanzania as DR Congo secured passage to the Africa Cup of Nations finals while Gabon kept their hopes alive with 2 goals against Lesotho in South Africa and Chad held hosts Zambia to a goalless draw.

In World Cup qualifiers in Asia, South Korea scored twice in Jordan while Oman put 4 past their visitors from Kuwait with a brace from Al Mushairifi and both teams scored own goals as Australia drew 1-1 in Japan. In South America, 10 Bolivians sent Colombia home 1-0 losers while Uruguay fell to a late goal in Peru.

In the CONCACAF Nations League, Keelan Lebon scored twice as Saint Martin celebrated an unbelievable 4-0 victory in St Lucia while Sint Maarten defeated Puerto Rico 3-2 in Aruba with a double from Chovanie Amatkarijo and a single goal gave Bonaire a win over Montserrat in St Vincent. Philippines shocked Tajikistan 3-0 in the King’s Cup in Thailand.