{"id":13805,"date":"2026-01-09T18:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/13805\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T18:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:47:08","slug":"senegal-edges-10-man-mali-to-book-africa-cup-semifinal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/13805\/","title":{"rendered":"Senegal edges 10-man Mali to book Africa Cup semifinal"},"content":{"rendered":"

RABAT, Morocco \u2014 Iliman Ndiaye\u2019s first-half strike was enough for Senegal to beat 10-man Mali 1-0 in their Africa Cup of Nations quarterfinal on Friday.<\/p>\n

Ndiaye poked the ball home from close range in the 27th minute after Mali ‘keeper Djigui Diarra let Kr\u00e9pin Diatta\u2019s cross slip through his fingers to land at Ndiaye\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n

The winter rain which has soaked the tournament started to fall early at Grand Stade de Tanger and it would not have helped Diarra\u2019s grip on the ball.<\/p>\n

Mali captain Yves Bissouma was already booked for a foul on Sadio Man\u00e9 as his team made a courageous start, and the Eagles\u2019 hopes took a major blow when he was shown a second yellow card before the break for a foul on Idrissa Gueye.<\/p>\n

Referee Abongile Tom had already sent off Woyo Coulibaly in Mali\u2019s previous game, a penalty shootout win over Tunisia, and Bissouma\u2019s sending off represented the team\u2019s third sending off in as many games.<\/p>\n

Senegal missed further chances with Diarra saving from Man\u00e9 in stoppage time.<\/p>\n

The 2021 champion awaits the winner between Ivory Coast and Egypt in the first semifinal, also in Tangier, on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\"Senegal's<\/p>\n

Senegal’s Iliman Ndiaye scores the opening goal of his team during the Africa Cup of Nations quarterfinal soccer match between Senegal and Mali in Tangier, Morocco, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. Credit: AP\/Themba Hadebe<\/p>\n

Host nation Morocco was playing five-time champion Cameroon in a duel between the Atlas Lions and Indomitable Lions in the second quarterfinal later Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RABAT, Morocco \u2014 Iliman Ndiaye\u2019s first-half strike was enough for Senegal to beat 10-man Mali 1-0 in their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[63,323,1308],"class_list":{"0":"post-13805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-africa","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-soccer","10":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}