Rui Vitoria Head Coach of Egypt is sad his side failed to advance to the quarter-finals stage of the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Cote’ Ivoire.
“It wasn’t what we expected. We came up against a tough opponent. Each team have its strong and weak moments.
“We’re very sad. We worked hard to go far in the competition,” he lamented.
He continued that, “there was the penalty shoot-out and that wasn’t our day. In football, there are good times and bad times”.
According to the coach he would take part of the responsibility for the defeat and vowed to keep working with his team to succeed on conditions that he remains with them.
On his part Sébastien Desabre, DR Congo Coach said coach, he was proud with the output of his players.
“I’m very proud of my players. We had a strategy in place to contain this team, but we played too low in the first half. I changed it afterwards and we played better. We suffered, but I think Egypt did too.
“My knowledge of Egyptian football probably helped us. They’re a good team but we were better today. Mentally, I think we were very strong.
“Now we’ll try to recover well and then we’ll take it match after match, starting with Guinea, our next opponent,” he added.
DR Congo defeated Egypt on penalties to advance to the quarter finals of the competition.
GNA
WE
24 Jan. 2024
