As in 2011 in Sudan, Mali crashed out of the group stage of the African Nations Championship 2022. This elimination against Mauritania (1-0) has made sports leaders, coaches, former footballers and journalists react.
Finalist in the previous edition of CHAN in Cameroon, Mali leaves Algeria at the end of the first round. The local Eagles finished last in their group behind Mauritania and Angola. A big disillusionment that admits the coach Nouhoum Diané. "We are really disappointed. But that's soccer," says the Malian coach.
"It is an elimination that leaves a bitter feeling. We had a team that could go very far, which had made a good preparation of 10 days away with a good acclimatization," says Birama Konate, coach African champion with the juniors of Mali in Niger in 2019. "In the profession of coaching, the management must assume. I'm sure they will assume. They have made choices and perhaps the players have not met expectations. Barou Sanogo left injured thinking that he would be recoverable. Aly Dessé left in this condition. The lesson I draw is that we like to focus too much on history. It's been more than 10 years, Mauritania works and it has a professional championship," adds the technician who is also the promoter of a soccer center, Lakika FC.
"Mali will know humiliation after humiliation..."
For Mamadou Sow, a soccer executive, "it is necessary to necessarily take stock of the management of FEMAFOOT since the election of the current president whose term ends on August 29. The president of AS Médine Football Club believes that the main reason for the failure of Mali in this competition is the general level of Malian soccer.
"All the efforts of the president of the executive committee of FEMAFOOT are focused primarily on the elections at the level of clubs, regional leagues and even associations and sports groups. The league of Segou is the perfect illustration of this situation. The president of FEMAFOOT Mamoutou Touré, since his election to date, as far as I know, has not been able to execute any important point of his program. As long as the Malian state does not really take charge of the soccer situation, our country will experience humiliation after humiliation. All the work we do at the grassroots level in our clubs and leagues is destroyed by a federal office that does not care about the development of our discipline, " says Mamadou Sow.
"Our soccer lives in lies".
If many fans think that the level of the Malian championship is low, Me Bassalifou Sylla, vice-president of Djoliba AC, believes that it is because of a lack of organization. "The Malian players are tired. The season has been too long and the players have not had a vacation. We add to that, a selection based on complacency and clientelism. We could not expect anything else. We do not prepare properly. Our soccer lives in the lie in the image of the country" denounces the leader.
This premature exit of the local Eagles has also touched Brahim Thiam, former Malian international. "Malian soccer continues to regress as was the case during the last CAN. Our youth teams struggle to reach the last four of major competitions. Our local players have not managed to qualify for the next round of CHAN 2022. The infrastructure is in a deplorable state and the list is long. All the actors of Malian soccer are divided because of the low blows, pettiness and other deplorable attitudes," wrote the former Eagles defender on his Facebook page.
