Liberia, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea qualified for the group stage of the 2022 World Cup qualifiers

Johannesburg-Sana

Liberia needed from a goalkeeper for a penalty near the end and Ethiopia to a reverse goal, Tanzania to a penalty shootout and Equatorial Guinea to a late goal to win all in the preliminaries of the African qualifiers for the 2022 FIFA World Cup and qualify for the group stage.

The four countries are the first to qualify for the preliminary round, which sees two round-robin clashes between the continent's 28 lowest-ranked teams.

Young goalkeeper Ashley Williams saved a last-minute penalty to give Liberia a 3-2 win over Sierra Leone despite a 1-0 loss in Freetown.

Ethiopia drew 1-1 away to Lesotho in Maseru, where captain Nkaw Lirotoli scored his own goal early in the second half to give the visitors the precious goal they needed to draw 1-1 in the overall result.

Tanzania had a tough task against Burundi after they drew 1-1 away at home on Wednesday.

Tanzania took the lead in the second leg but received a goal at the end of the first half and extended the game to extra time before Burundi wasted all attempts in the penalty shootout won by Tanzania 3 - zero.

Equatorial Guinea captain Emilio Nso scored the winner in the 72nd minute in his country's 1-0 win over South Sudan in Malabo and a 2-1 win in the overall score was more difficult than expected for Equatorial Guinea, who beat the same opponent 4-0 in their last encounter three years ago. Years.

The remaining 10 matches will be played in the preliminary round tomorrow and the winning teams will qualify for the group stage, where 40 countries will be divided into ten groups.