The recently appointed Congo Brazzaville coach, the much travelled Frenchman Claude Le Roy is in South Africa with the “Red Devils” but he says his role is to assist his number 2 Sebastian Migne who is in charge of the CHAN team. The 65 year old coach took time to speak to Cafonline.com during Congo’s training session at Free State Stadium in Mangaung.
Migne had earlier on said that his Congo side is in a strong group and will not start out as favourites to progress but that would not stop them from giving their all. “Our relatively inexperienced side at this stage of competition does not put us in a good starting place but we will not be lacking in will power and enthusiasm to impress at the tournament” said Migne. Congo get Group C of the Orange CAF African Nations Championship (CHAN) 2014 South Africa underway against Ghana at 17h00 local time, The match will be played at Mangaung’s Free State Stadium on Monday 13th January.,
Le Roy watched the Congolese side go through their paces from the sidelines and in his typical jocular fashion said “Yes l crossed 6km of the Congo river to come work with the Brazzaville side.” Le Roy was with neighbouring DR Congo this time last year during the AFCON finals also held in South Africa. “Congo Brazzaville has not been at finals of major tournament for 15 years or more and this has left the national team behind in terms of the mental strength and experience needed to compete at this level. We have come to Congo to rebuild the team with the aim of competing to qualify for AFCON 2015 and playing in CHAN is part of this exercise. There are good players in Congo and l will work to improve them and here at CHAN l am a mere observer to what my assistant is doing” said Le Roy
When pressed by Cafonline.com to define what would be considered a successful outing at CHAN 2014, Le Roy said, “Actually we have not set any target at all for this team. There is no pressure whatsoever to do anything other than play as best as we can and enjoy the experience of this tournament. Whether we win or do not the importance lies in taking the experience of playing in the CHAN finals as a learning curve” concluded Le Roy
Confederation of African Football News
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