The tournament doubles as Africa's qualifiers for the U17 World Cup

Hosts Rwanda got off to a flying start at this year's African U17 Championship, defeating Burkina Faso 2-1 in the opening game on Saturday.

The home side raced into the lead on three minutes thanks to a strike by Faustin Usengimana in Kigali.

Rwanda doubled their lead just after the break with Tibingana Mwesigye scoring in the Group A game.

The visitors rallied and got their consolation through Faisal Ouedraogo's 54th minute effort.

The group's other game saw Egypt with an impressive 2-1 win over Senegal.

The north Africans will play the host nation in their next game on Tuesday while Burkina Faso take on Senegal.

Despite their opening match victory, Rwanda coach Richard Tardy says their subsequent matches will be equally difficult.

"We're happy because we started with a win against a very good team of Burkina. It's a very good result," Tardy told BBC Sport.

"But we must know that it'll be very difficult to qualify because Egypt and Senegal are also very two strong teams.

"Our first aim is to qualify for the next stage. It'll be very good for the country and for the football in Rwanda. I don't think about the first place, I'm only thinking about the next game with Egypt."

Burkina Faso's Portuguese coach Rui Vieria blamed his team's defeat on lack of firepower but he is confident they will qualify to the second stage of the tournament.

"We didn't start well the first minutes but we changed in the second half and created many chances. We could have equalized but we were unlucky," Vieria said.

"We're not yet out of the tournament. We still have two games and we can get six points."

Two Group B matches will be played on Sunday with Ivory Coast playing Mali while Gambia take on Congo.

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