Aliou Cisse: High-level football is very unforgiving

Cissé is adamant they will not take their eyes off the ball until the last minute against another South American side, Ecuador.

“Against Columbia in 2018 I think we were dominating and then there was a corner then we conceded a goal. High-level football is very unforgiving. You let things slip for a couple of seconds then you conceded a goal. I hope that we will be on guard today.

It’s a very dangerous team. Ecuador is a team that knows how to score goals, so it’s up to us to not give them the gateway. We have experience in these types of competition and we will learn from the mistakes we made when we played against Columbia. We need to be more concentrated than we were the last time,” he said.

The Lions of Teranga coach believes his players play very high-quality football and he would like to see them continue to the knockout stages in Qatar.

“Football isn’t war, no one is going to die in battle. I hope not anyway. But it is a decisive game, it is an important game for my generation, for this generation of 2022. We are playing exceptional football and I want to continue with this adventure. I want to have a clear head

“It’s a game where we will not be able to take our eyes off the ball. We’ll play up until the 90th or 95th minute. We know that we can score, we know that they can do the same thing but it’s important to play the game,” he added.

Furthermore, Cissé believes coming from a country that prides itself on winning, missing on the knockout stages of the World Cup will be bitterly disappointing for the African champions.

“Senegal doesn’t like losing, we are always hungry for that win. I grew up in a population that always wants to win. We always want to see these wins coming in. So, so not going to the round of 16 will be a hard pill to swallow

“However, we are still talking about football here and what is important for us is to do exactly what we need to and to give ourselves the possibility to move on to the knockout stages,” he concluded.