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Monday 10 October, 2011 |

Toure brothers lift Côte d’Ivoire

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Brothers Kolo and Yaya Toure of Manchester City scored Sunday as Côte d’Ivoire snatched a 2-1 home win over Burundi to finish with the only perfect record in 2012 CAF African Cup of Nations qualifying. Centre-back Kolo Toure put the Elephants ahead on 70 minutes at Felix Houphouet-Boigny Stadium in Abidjan only for Dugary Ndabashinze to level for Burundi soon after. It was left to Yaya Toure to earn the 1992 Cup of Nations champions a sixth victory in six Group H matches with a goal three minutes into stoppage time. Rwanda, whose Ghana-born coach Sellas Tettah quit last month after securing just one win from five qualifiers, climbed two places to second on the final table with a surprise 1-0 away win over Benin in Porto Novo courtesy of a sixth-minute Mere Kagere goal. Group E table-toppers Senegal could not quite match the maximum 18-point haul of Ivory Coast, finishing with 16 after scoring a couple of early goals to triumph 2-0 in Mauritius and inflict a humiliating sixth loss on the trot for the Indian Ocean islanders. Dame N'Doye scored from a free-kick on nine minutes and after Mauritian Stephane Badul was red-carded for fouling the Denmark-based striker, Papiss Cisse added a second goal midway through the opening half. Morocco clinch first in group In the day's later kick-off, Rebel Adel Taarabt scored to power Morocco 3-1 past Tanzania in Marrakech, clinching first place in Group D and a ticket to the tournament. Taarabt drilled a free-kick into the net midway through the second half to put Morocco ahead a second time and M'bark Boussoufa added a third in the final minute. Arsenal striker Marouane Chamakh opened the scoring and Aggrey Morris levelled before half-time. Algeria, meanwhile, defeated Central African Republic 2-0 in the other Group D game, but were nonetheless eliminated from contention along with their opponents. Sudan, as expected, completed the line-up by securing the second best runners-up place. Hassan Yebda and Foued Kadir scored for Algeria, who join Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa as 2010 FIFA World Cup™ qualifiers who failed to make the cut for the biennial showcase of African football. Apart from the co-hosts, Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, Mali, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, Zambia, Morocco have all booked their places at next year's tournament.

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