On the eve of the friendly match against Kenya in Türkiye, the Lions’ coach answers questions from the media.
Where are you in your preparation for this match?
We have one more training session. We just played a match on Saturday and we’re still recovering, especially the starting players. The substitutes trained well yesterday. Now we need to make the final adjustments for tomorrow’s match.
Looking back, what’s your analysis of the match against Brazil?
I’d say it was a good defeat. We learned from it. We were expecting a very difficult match against Brazil. Even though I’d say the players stepped up, we unfortunately lost. We know where we fell short. We need to work on the areas for improvement and keep the good things we did. It was interesting to play against Brazil. The players were committed, but there were many things that caused us to lose the match. But that’s precisely what matches with microphones are for, and we learned a lot from this game.
What are you expecting from the match against Kenya?
At the AFCON, we’ll have many opponents like that. This match is interesting, even though Kenya didn’t qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations. We expect a tough match, but we’ve been working on that. Against this kind of team, you have to take control of the game as early as possible. It won’t be easy because they have their strengths. They’ll try to make things difficult for us, but it will be up to us to adapt. For preparation for the Africa Cup of Nations, Kenya is a good opponent.
How do you plan to remotivate the team after this defeat?
It’s never easy after a defeat, but when you have competitors, experienced players who know the highest level, like in this group, it shouldn’t be difficult to remotivate the troops. They want to start fresh. They had a goal against Brazil; they didn’t want to lose their record of 26 matches unbeaten. Now that we’ve lost it, we have to move on. We have to focus on the match against Kenya to properly prepare for the Africa Cup of Nations.
In recent matches, Senegal has often conceded early. What are your thoughts on this?
Generally, people think we haven’t started a match well when we get on the bus quickly. But that’s not my opinion at all. When you look at the performance, we had chances, maybe we didn’t capitalize on them. And then, the opponents scored. But against England and DR Congo, we came back strong and won those matches. But it’s true that against Brazil, we didn’t start the match well. We all know why, even if we’re not going to dwell on it. It wasn’t easy, but that’s not an excuse. This match taught us a lot. We’ll remember this lesson well; it’s a lesson learned.
Is it a burden to play with these long unbeaten streaks?
It’s not easy at all to have to manage these kinds of streaks. Whether you’re a coach or a player, you never want to lose, even in a friendly match. We always have goals, but there are always rewards at the end. When we have that (an unbeaten run), it gets programmed into our brains. Losing is never pleasant. But now that we’ve lost, we have to go for other records and other goals. We could do the same and string together many matches without losing.
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