Sweden began their friendly tournament campaign in Cyprus with a 2-0 win against the host nation. First-half goals from Tobias Hysen and Markus Berg were enough to give Erik Hamren's side a routine victory. The tournament's other fixture saw Ukraine beat Romania 4-2 in a penalty shootout, after the game had ended 2-2. Ukraine had taken a 2-0 lead through Yaroslav Rakitskiy and Artem Milevskiy but they were pegged back by a double from Dan Alexa.
In action involving African teams, Didier Ya Konan scored the only goal to help Ivory Coast sink Mali 1-0 in Valence. The decisive strike came after three minutes at the French venue, which was marred by some heated exchanges between the players late on following several bad tackles.
The match also saw Didier Drogba play his first international since last year's World Cup finals in South Africa - the Chelsea striker marking his return by laying the ball on for fellow forward Gervinho, whose cross was met by Hannover midfielder Ya Konan. Mali missed a second-half penalty before the game was stopped twice, first after a fight broke out between the players and then for a floodlight failure. Elsewhere, Ghana's new coach Goran Stevanovic began his reign in style after watching his side thrash Togo 4-1 in Antwerp.
The continent's top side took the lead after just 10 minutes thanks to Dominic Adiyiah.
And further strikes from Jonathan Mensah (60), an own goal from captain Serge Akakpo (69) and a late effort by Samuel Inkoom (83) saw the Black Stars run out easy victors.
In Tuesday's other friendly clash Peru recorded a 1-0 victory over Panama as Orlando Contreras got the only goal.
No comments:
Post a Comment