There are shock reports in Udine that Fiorentina and Italy defender Davide Astori has died in his sleep.

Dreams have earned the rights to play in this year’s Ghalca G8 final after beating pre-tournament favourites Medeama on Thursday.

The newly promoted Ghana Premier League side won the highly competitive semi-final clash 6-5 on penalties after a barren draw in 90 minutes.

Dreams had a larger share of the exchanges in the first half of the game but could not make their dominance count.

However, in the second half, Dreams FC thought they had taken the lead when a shot taken by Richard Addae went off the post and seemed to have crossed the line but the referee waved play on.

With Dreams 4-3 up in the shootout, they missed the chance to wrap things up while Medeama scored to make it 4-4 after 5 kicks.

Dreams went on to score two more times while Medeama scored once and missed the other.

Source: Ghana|Joy Sports

Zambia will hope to maintain their status as Group B leaders of the African Nations Championship (CHAN) when they come up against Ivory Coast at Stade de Marrakech on Thursday evening for matchday two.

The Chipolopolo showed their class with a 3-1 win over Uganda thanks to Lazarous Kambole, Augustine Mulenga and Fackson Kapumbu goals.

The victory can only but bode well for Wilson Nyirenda’s boys heading into encounter against Ivory Coast and they will need all the confidence they can get when they face the side that suffered a surprise defeat going 1-0 against Namibia.

“I think we are not so bad, we are looking good after that emphatic win. The boys have put that win behind and they are looking forward to that game against Ivory Coast,” Nyirenda said.

“The most important thing is not to be complacent because we are playing a team which has been wounded as they lost to Namibia in a very bad time. The game was already over in the last few seconds, they lost so they are really hurt and are wounded so they will come on us,”he added.

Ivory Coast coach Ibrahim Kamara meanwhile insist that his side can fix what went amiss in their opener against Namibia and it will be an improved showing against Zambia tonight.

“We came with the intention of scoring very quickly. But faced with a very well-organised team, it was necessary to regroup to try to take advantage of the flaws,” said Kamara.

“Unfortunately we took a goal in the last minutes. We are going to shoot the lessons for better performance in the future.

“We’ll have to roll up the sleeves to address the other meetings. We still have days ahead of us to work.
“We will have to be much more incisive and faster. I think the keys to the next matches are there,” he concluded.

The other Group B match will take place later the same day in Marrakech and sees Uganda take on Namibia.