Tunisia made a perfect start to their TotalEnergies CAF Africa Cup of Nations Morocco 2025 campaign with a convincing 3–1 victory over Uganda on Tuesday evening at the Annex Olympic Stadium of the Prince Moulay Abdellah Sports Complex in Rabat.

The Carthage Eagles took early control of the contest and opened the scoring in the 10th minute through Elyes Skhiri, who finished off a well-worked team move with a precise strike.

In full command of proceedings, Tunisia maintained their tempo and doubled their lead just before the break, with Elias Achouri showing great composure inside the box to score in the 40th minute.

After half-time, Samy Trabelsi’s men continued to assert their dominance. Solid and well organised throughout, they put the result beyond doubt in the 64th minute when Achouri completed his brace with a clinical finish.

Uganda pulled one back in stoppage time through Denis Omedi, capitalising on a slight lapse in concentration from the Tunisians late on. The goal, however, had no impact on the final outcome, with Tunisia firmly in control by that stage.

With this assured performance, Tunisia get their Group C campaign off to an ideal start and immediately signal their ambitions in the competition.

REACTIONS:

PAUL PUT – UGANDA COACH

“We showed them too much respect, we know they are good at set pieces. This is a bad start. I think we were not aggressive enough. If you play AFCON, you need to win the duels. We only had about 25 minutes of the game but the rest, we were on the backfoot which is not enough for a competition like the Africa Cup of Nations”

“We know what we have to do in our next game. We will be playing under pressure. A draw will not be enough. You now need to win your next game to be in a position to finish second or third. We will analyse the game and identify what we did wrong and what can be done better. I do believe that we can bounce back”

SAMI TRABELSI – TUNISIA COACH

“We have other players who performed better than expected. I warm sure the whole team is very effective and hoping to have the entire squad fit for all our matches. For us, the city is very welcoming. We are very happy to have the warm welcoming of Moroccan fans. For us we consider all matches to be difficult, and we give them the respect required. Our goal is to improve with each match as we gain momentum”

“I must also comment the organisers because even while we played under heavy rains, the pitch remained in very good and playable conditions”

MOHAMED ELYES ACHOURI – TUNISIA

“Thank you to my teammates first of all for the great work they put in helping us get the victory. I also want to extend a big thank you to the supporters who came out in their numbers in this rain. We hope we made our supporters proud. We hope we made them proud and that they were rewarded for their faith in us in such cold and wet weather conditions.” (CAFonline.com)