Senegal coach Aliou Cisse says it was not his decision for Sadio Mane to take his side’s second penalty during their 3-0 victory over Kenya in Monday’s final Africa Cup of Nations Group C game at the 30 June Stadium.
The Liverpool star and Champions League winner missed a chance to put the Teranga Lions in front in the 29th minute after his penalty was saved by Patrick Matasi.
However, Mane doubled his side’s lead after Ismaila Sarr had opened the scoring and he made amends for his earlier penalty miss when he completed his brace from the spot to help the West Africans progress to the knockout stage of the competition after finishing second in Group C behind Algeria.
Cisse explained that the 27-year-old is charged with the responsibility of taking spot-kicks for his side but after Mane missed his first effort, he was against the forward taking the second penalty.
“What’s important is that [Mane] wanted to take his responsibility on this second penalty, he was right, I decided that he shouldn’t take it,” Cisse told Goal.
“It’s important for a captain to take his responsibility. Nothing was improvised, Mane was the first penalty taker on the board, and so he shot.”
Senegal have attempted the most shots (52) in the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations but have only managed to score five of the chances.
“Yes, we have progressed, but as I want to say - before the goal, they had chances. So we will stay focused, I think today our dimension offensive was very interesting, we found ourselves getting the ball out, controlling the game,” he continued.
“It’s true that my regret is about chances created and we have problem scoring goals, there are a lot of bad choices when you can kill a game you must kill it.”
The Teranga Lions will take on Uganda in the round of 16 of the tournament at the Cairo International Stadium on Friday.
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