Africa: Cape Verde Cruise Past Mauritania to Semi-Final in Style

Cape Verde concluded their Group A campaign in the ongoing 2023 WAFU ‘A’ Women’s Championship in style with a comprehensive 6-0 victory over Mauritania in Sal, Cape Verde on Tuesday.

Ivania Moreira netted five times and Kleydiana Borges’ effort saw the Cape Verdeans end at top of Group A with six points and guaranteed their semi-final qualification at Estadio Marcelo Leitao.

It did not take long for the scoring to be broken as Moreira netted from the spot in the seventh minute to make it 1-0.

10 minutes later, Moreira doubled the lead with a fine finish before grabbing her hat trick in the 28th minute for a comfortable three-goal advantage to the host nation before the half time break.

After the break, the hosts continued from where they left off when Borges made it four 14 minutes into the second half before Moreira went on to notch her fourth and fifth of the match to complete the total obliteration of the Mauritanians.

Besides claiming the official match ball, five-goal scorer Ivania Moreira went home with the Woman of the Match award after her lethal performance in Cape Verde’s healthy triumph.

After five goals on the day, Moreira now tops the tournament’s scorer charts with seven goals – ahead of second-placed Senegal’s Habsatou Diallo (six) and third Gambia’s Catherine Jatta (five).

REACTIONS

Abdoulaye Diallo, Mauritania head coach:”My team is young, though the girls are capable, we have a lesser experience. I must admit that on the field, Cape Verde were much better, so that’s why we lost. We are starting now that we have young a team. We will work harder and study all the videos of our gamees, try to learn from our mistakes and try to do better next time.”

Antonio Romao, Guinea Bissau head coach: “We played well and that’s why they won. We are more ambitious now, last tournament we finished fourth, now our ambition is to go a little bit further but we will respect all other teams and of course, I think they also will respect us more. Senegal and the Gambia are really strong teams. We have played against them and we know they are strong but we are also fully prepared for any of them. We will do our best to go further in this competition.

Cape Verde’s Ivania Moreira, Woman of the Match: “I am very happy with the victory. I want to dedicate it to my mother and father, unfortunately, they can’t be here to see me. I want to continue to make them proud and my goal is to keep doing well to get a chance to go abroad and play internationally. I am happy to score five goals and will keep working hard to be able to do it again in our next game. I believe everything is possible.”