African Champions Senegal Crash Out Of FIFA U20 World Cup

Senegal Crash Out Of FIFA U20 World Cup 

By Admin

It was to be late heartbreak for Senegal, who were pegged back at the death by Oscar Cortes to see their hopes of qualifying from Group C dashed.

Despite leading for over an hour, a late Oscar Cortes strike sent Senegal tumbling out of the FIFA U-20 World Cup Argentina 2023â„¢.

The African champions took the lead when Mamadou Camara pounced on a poor Kevin Mantilla back-pass to race through on goal and slot the ball into the bottom-right corner. Camara was soon involved again, but saw his fizzing drive come off the foot of the post, before Colombia goalkeeper Luis Marquinez made a fine save to deny Pape Demba Diop.

Colombia began to fight back in the second period and almost found a way back into the contest when Alexis Castillo Manyoma connected to a deep Andres Salazar cross, but his downward header bounced up on to the Senegal bar.

They would equalise right at the death, though, when Oscar Cortes latched on to a ball into the area to superbly lob Senegal goalkeeper Mamour Ndiaye, preserving Colombia's unbeaten record and sending Senegal crashing out of the tournament in dramatic fashion following Israel's similarly-late goal against Japan.

Colombia have now faced Senegal three times in the group stage of the U-20 World Cup, but have failed to defeat their African counterparts in any of them, following a 1-1 draw at New Zealand 2015 and a 2-0 defeat at Poland 2019.