Senegal Edges Pass Brazil to become the first African Nation to reach the Semi-Final of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup Tournament 

Despite an early two goals deficit to Brazil in the first period, the Senegalese Beach Soccer team came back from behind and took advantage of the extra time to defeat Brazil 5-4 in the quarter-finals and become the first African country to book a semi-final place in the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup tournament since it was introduced in 2005. 

Brazil’s dreams of winning the tournament for the sixth time as the tournament favourites ended with a defeat to Senegal (the most successful African nation in Beach Soccer) – Senegal has won the African Beach Soccer Cup of Nations six times more than any other national team.

This is the second time in a row that the Brazilian team is defeated in the quarterfinals of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup – they lost 4-3 to Russia in 2019.

The Senegalese team has been superb so far in this tournament. They battled it out with strong opponents like Uruguay, Portugal and Oman in their three group stage matches and came out top (of Group D) with 6 points defeating Uruguay 6-1 in the opening game before beating Portugal 5-3 in their second game. 

Raoul Mendy’s brilliance in pulling the strings for the Senegalese team in this campaign can’t be overstated. His two goals contribution and that of Mandione Diagne helped Senegal to see off Brazil to progress to the next round of the competition and he is just one goal shy of the top spot with Leo Martins of Portugal with 7 goals and Dejan Stankovic of Switzerland with 7 goals too. 

Senegal will face the winner of the quarter-final match between Japan and Tahiti in the semi-final of the Beach Soccer World Cup currently going on in Russia on the 28th of August.