Dominant Ethiopia Pip Seychelles in Hawassa
By the victory, the Walia Antelopes remain in contention for the best two runners-up spots, to be decided after the final round of matches on Sunday.
The homers dominated proceedings from the onset with Getaneh Kebede’s point blank header parried away by Seychellois goalie Gino Melanie after only five minutes.
Minutes later, on-fire Kebede yet again tested Melanie with a good shot from the edge of the box which the latter collected with ease.
To the surprise of the home crowd, the visiting islanders went into the lead through Achiue Henriette in the 20th minute. Henriette rose high to head home past Walias custodian Jemal Tassew from close range.
In the 33rd minute, Salahdin Said lost his marker to set up Kebede who restored parity with an effort inside the box.
Seychelles’ perseverance in defensive organization continued in the second half. But Said was brought down inside the vital area by Melanie in the 52nd minute for a penalty. Said made no mistake converting the spot kick as Melanie tried in vain to save the shot.
The result saw Ethiopia finish second with 11 points whilst Seychelles achieved their best ever point tally in the history of the qualifiers, four points from six matches. Leaders Algeria will host Lesotho in the other Group J clash on Sunday in Blida.
The Walias will have to wait till Sunday to learn their fate, to be decided by the outcome of the other matches.
Reactions
Gebremedhin Haile (Coach, Ethiopia)
We can’t say we achieved what we hoped for 100 per cent. Winning the game was our main aim and we are glad to have done that although we couldn’t score more goals. Our opponents were more defensive and we couldn’t penetrate their strong defence to score more goals. We squandered a clear goal scoring opportunity and we look at this as a major weakness. We have learnt a lot from the match.
Ralph Jean-Louis (Coach, Seychelles)
Firstly, I want to congratulate Ethiopia for winning the match even though I have some doubts about the second goal. It was a good match in general. We played against a very good and technical Ethiopian side. I think our good organization didn’t provide them with that much opportunity. We are satisfied with the result. We were expecting the same result because of the altitude we know it was going to give us a problem but we organized ourselves and the results speak for themselves. Losing 2-1 to Ethiopia away is quite a decent result for Seychelles.