Senegal midfielder, Cheikhou Kouyate has come out to say that the country drafted the team’s cameraman and kitman in the squad en route to winning the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations. He recently had his say while speaking to the press, and fans have been reacting.
According to him, the nation had the kitman training with the team because Senegal didn’t have enough people for training, and he even played left-back at some point.
He added that the country’s success story is beautiful because COVID took 10 players from the squad, and to prepare for the games, Senegal had to use members of the staff that were not footballers.
His words, “We had a very bad start.”
“If you look at the team before the first game, we lost 10 players because they had Covid.”
“We didn’t have a goalkeeper, defenders, midfielders, wingers, strikers. It’s too much.”
“In training, we prepared for the game using the staff: the cameraman, the kitman. The kitman was training with us because we didn’t have people for training! He was playing left-back because we needed to do tactical work.”
“The first two games were played like that, and it was not easy – but after the third game everyone was back.”
“We scored only one goal [in the group stage] and it was a penalty.”
“Everyone says: ‘Senegal are so bad!’ But I think this helped us.”
“Imagine you win the first game, you win the second game and everyone would say: ‘Oh Senegal, look at Senegal.’ But nobody in this tournament was waiting for Senegal.”
“After three games they said: ‘No, Senegal will not win anything. They are going to go home.”
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