Ivory Coast were in a rampant mood as they thrashed Burundi 4-0 in an international friendly played at Stade de Marrakech on Wednesday night.
The Elephants started the stronger of the two teams, though Burundi had a moment of danger on seventh minute minutes when they poached the ball in the East Africans’ half and created a shooting chance for Amissi Mohamed, but his low effort was smothered by Badra Sangare.
On 10th minute Ivory Coast’s Jean-Philippe Kaso opened the scoring when he struck a fine effort which Jonathan Nahimana couldn’t keep out.
Dercik Mukombozi then had a chance to fire Burundi back into the match , but the attacker was ruled offside 25 minutes into the game.
Ivory Coast came close to extending their lead seven minutes later, but Intamba mu Rugamba goalkeeper Nahimana punched the ball away from danger.
The momentum remained with the Elephants with the West Africans finding the second goal on the stroke of the halftime courtesy of Max-Alain Gradel well-paced header.
Ivory Coast continued to tighten the screws on the visitors and it was hardly a surprise when Ibrahim Sangare increased the lead in the 58th minute, to increase his international goals tally to 26.
A mistake by Burundi shot-stopper Nahimana handed the Elephants another goal and the score was 4-0 with 27 minutes left on the clock.
Nahimana was replaced by Fabien Mutombola on the 74th minute and the Vipers SC custodian stood firm between the goal posts to deny Ivory Coast more goals.
Burundi did attack in numbers as they looked to pull one back, but they could not beat Sangare in the latter stages of the game.
The match ended in a 4-0 win in favour of Ivory Coast, who managed to contain Burundi in the dying minutes.
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