Africa representative at the ongoing FIFA Club World Cup, Esperance of Tunisia will on Tuesday battle Chelsea in a must-win encounter.
A victory for the African side would see Esperance advance to the quarter-finals of the competition for the first time in the club’s history.
Esperance reignited their FIFA Club World Cup campaign with a dramatic 1-0 victory over Los Angeles FC (LAFC) on Friday night.
The result sends the Tunisian club into a three-way battle for the final knock-out berth.
Algerian forward Youcef Belaili settled a stop-start contest at GEODIS Park on 70 minutes, drilling a low finish inside Hugo Lloris’s near post after Mohamed Amine Ben Hamida’s surging run had caused chaos in the LAFC area.
The goal arrived barely 20 minutes after Belaili had been booked for simulation when VAR overturned what he thought was a penalty – a decision that threatened to haunt Espérance until his cool strike sparked celebrations among the large Tunisian contingent in the stands.
“We played as a team today, and we fixed the problems that we had for the last game,” Esperance winger Elias Mokwana said after the match.
The South African forward was a lively presence throughout the Group D clash at GEODIS Park in Nashville and was quick to emphasise the importance of togetherness in bouncing back from their opening loss to Flamengo.
Mokwana also hailed his side’s collective response following their hard-fought 1-0 victory over Los Angeles FC.
The evening’s drama began long before Belaili’s winner. With thunderstorms rumbling over Tennessee, kick-off was delayed almost an hour; when play finally began, LAFC seized the early initiative.
