Hosts Rwanda got their African Nations Championship (CHAN) campaign off to a winning start with a 1-0 victory over Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n
Rwandan defender Emery Bayisenge scored the game’s only goal on 15 minutes.<\/p>\n
The Amavubi had a chance to go 2-0 up on the hour mark but the Elephants’ goalkeeper Badra Ali Sangare managed to keep it out.<\/p>\n
Despite that miss, the hosts went on to secure a crucial opening win in front of their home fans in Kigali.<\/p>\n
The tournament for locally-based players is the biggest sporting event Rwanda has ever hosted.<\/p>\n
It involves 16 teams playing in three cities – with the capital Kigali, as well as Gisenyi in the west and Butare in the south all hosting games.<\/p>\n
The hosts performed well in the run-up to the tournament and Northern Irish coach Johnny McKinstry will be pleased to see his team carry that form into the finals.<\/p>\n
The Elephants, meanwhile, are making their third appearance at this tournament and have yet to get beyond the group stage.<\/p>\n
The Ivorians are the reigning Africa Cup of Nations champions, but that was achieved with a squad that included only one home-based player.<\/p>\n
Gabon face Morocco in the other Group A game on Saturday.
\n–
\nBy: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hosts Rwanda got their African Nations Championship (CHAN) campaign off to a winning start with a 1-0 victory over Ivory Coast. Rwandan defender Emery Bayisenge scored the game’s only goal on 15 minutes. The Amavubi had a chance to go 2-0 up on the hour mark but the Elephants’ goalkeeper Badra Ali Sangare managed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[142,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182242\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}