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Morocco survives in the only eighth without expulsions

Achraf celebra su gol ante  Malaui.

Morocco suffered to overcome Malawi in the round of 16 of the Africa Cup of Nations. The Atlas lions had to draw on two of their great stars, En Nesyri and Achraf, to overcome Mhango’s amazing goal in the first halfwho scored one of the tournament’s goals, surprising an advanced Bono with a 30-meter shot.

As an anecdote, Morocco-Malawi was the only match of these round of 16 in which there was no expulsion. And it is that as the African Cup has progressed, the matches have become increasingly intense. Gone is the group stage, in which until the last match almost all the teams had a chance of passing the round. Already in the knockout stage, no team wants to say goodbye to the tournament and the game has hardened, perhaps excessively. Proof of this are the seven expulsions that have been seen in these first six round of 16 matches, where only in Morocco-Malawi did the two teams finish the duel with eleven players.

For such statistics, in addition to rough play, the participation of VAR has also been important, much more interventionist in this round than in the first phase of the CAN. Of the seven expulsions, four occurred at the request of the video arbitration, which recommended that the referees see again the entries that had been sanctioned with yellow at first. In some of the cases, such as the expulsion of Abdou from Comoros against Cameroon or that of the Cape Verdean goalkeeper Vozinha against Senegal, the decisions were quite rigorous, but according to CAF, they want to root out rough play in the tournament and each action will be reviewed minutely to try to prevent the most important tournament on the continent from becoming a bloodletting.

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