Guinea’s U-23 football team booked their place at the final tournament in Paris with a play-off victory over Indonesia. Ilaix Moriba scored the only goal of the match in the French town of Clairefontaine.
The African side beat Indonesia 1-0 in the play-off to become the sixteenth and final qualifier for the men’s tournament in Paris.
Guinea overcame an Indonesia side that had squandered three chances to secure a place at Paris 2024 after causing an upset by knocking out South Korea in the quarter-finals (10-11 on penalties). From there, their only losses were to Uzbekistan (2-1) and Iraq (2-1), which ended their dream of returning to the Olympic Games for the first time in almost seven decades (the USSR excluded them from Melbourne 1956).
The men’s football tournament, which runs from 24 July to 9 August, thus concluded with the 16 qualifying matches.
READ ALSO: Lookman nominated for Player of the Week
For the winners, Getafe’s Ilaix Moriba (whose rights are owned by Leipzig) scored the only goal of the match from the penalty spot in the 29th minute of the first half to book his country’s place as the sixteenth and final qualifier for the men’s tournament in Paris. It will be their second appearance at an Olympic men’s football tournament, having made their only appearance in 1968.
With this victory, the African nation joins Egypt, Morocco and Mali in representing their continent in Paris 2024, where they will share Group A with local giants France (with the possibility that their megastar Kylian Mbappé, who has even been called up by President Emmanuel Macron, could take part in an attempt to win a second gold medal for his country after the one he won in Los Angeles in 1984).
The men’s football team have secured their ticket for #Paris2024. 👏 They join 15 other qualified nations playing for gold in France. 🥇 Tickets are available from https://t.co/Qeii6dF3RS.#RoadToParis2024 #OlympicQualifiers
Guinea are in a group with the United States and New Zealand and will need to finish second if they are to achieve their golden dream of bringing gold back to Africa after 24 years, with Nigeria at Atlanta 96 and Cameroon at Sydney 2000 the last teams to do so.