El Hadji Diouf: Senegal coach is responsible for Afcon elimination

The two-time African Footballer of the Year blasted the Teranga Lions trainer two days after the team prematurely crashed out of the 2012 Afcon

27 Jan 2012 14:17:00

By Kingsley Kobo in Libreville

More On :  Senegal, El-Hadji Diouf
El Hadji Diouf of Senegal
Getty

Former Senegal captain and the country’s football bad boy El Hadji Diouf says that the Teranga Lions’ coach Amara Traore is responsible for the “reckless” elimination of the team from the ongoing 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.

The former Liverpool winger accused the 46-year-old manager on Friday of a lack of experience and pomposity, which he said falsely presented the current Senegal squad as a strong and formidable outfit.

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“The Senegal team has no soul. I have always said that Amara Traore knows nothing. He doesn’t have the level of experience and knowledge to handle the team,” Diouf told Orange Sports.

“See, Traore and the FA guys used the victory against Cameroon and the qualification to the 2012 Afcon to launch the Teranga Lions as a squad to be reckoned with on the continent, without really checking to see the true capacity of the team. The team is weak, or let me say doesn’t worth the big name pundits give to it and the true status has just been revealed.

“I predicted the failure of Senegal at the 2012 Afcon and it has happened. The FA people are jealous of Senegal’s 2002 generation. They don’t want to associate us with the team. Some of us have experience.

"I’m completing my coaching course in England and I could be useful to the team but they have mixed politics with football in Senegal and things will never change for good for now,” he concluded.

The 31-year-old striker, who plays for Doncaster Rovers in the English Football League Championship, was handed a five-year ban from all football activities last year by the Senegal Football Federation for accusing the body’s officials of corruption.

Senegal crashed out of the 2012 Afcon after losing their first two matches to Zambia 2-1 and co-host's Equatorial Guinea 2-1.

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19:46 BST
Joe Hart has also been giving his thoughts after the Belgium game: "It was a really tough game, a good run out. I thought we played well, [but] we were a little bit bitty at times.

"But, we came through. Obviously there were a lot of changes so it's good to get the result.

"Belgium are a very, very strong side who are going to be really good in the future. Vincent [Kompany] told me about them and said that they were coming good and I totally agree with him."
19:38 BST
Here's Roy Hodgson's reaction to the result and some injury chat: "I'm very pleased, it's been a hard week and we've used a lot of players. There was a lot of disruption in the second-half with substitutions – some forced upon us, some we wanted to do. But it's still a very good end to the week playing against a good Belgian team here. Arguably even stronger than the Norwegian team we played last week and I've got to be more than happy that we've come out with another victory."

"[Gary] Cahill I suppose is slightly more of a concern for me because it is a jaw injury. We're desperately hoping the CT scan doesn't show any fracture and it's just going to be a bruising situation, which will be bad enough, but won't stop him taking part in the tournament. As far as John's [Terry] concerned he felt his hamstring a little bit. Again it wasn't a major thing when he came off but we still need to scan it just to be 100 per cent sure."

Suffice to say, if Cahill has broken his jaw, he won't play any part in the tournament.
19:35 BST
And another point from today: Eden Hazard wasn't great. Don't think you can judge him on one performance though. What do you think? Is it just a case of too much hype around the Chelsea-bound Belgian?
19:32 BST
We're getting plenty of people saying it was boring. PLENTY. But Spain scored seven goals in eight games at the World Cup and I didn't hear too many of their fans complaining. Or as Fran Stinchcombe points out on Twitter: "If we had lost but played free flowing attacking football would these people still have moaned?"
19:24 BST
No, no, no. I'll have none of that Emile Heskey shouting anymore! Hello, it's me, it's me, it's that D-O-Y-L-E. Yes, I'm Joe Doyle, and I'll be here for all the reaction to that England game. First things first, how did everyone see that game? Good performance? A touch boring? Let me know on Twitter.
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