Aliou Cisse, the coach of Senegal, thinks that his team will need to change its strategy against Ecuador if it wants to move on to the next round of the World Cup.
The Teranga Lions lost to the Netherlands 1-0, but they beat the hosts Qatar 3-1 on Friday. This gave them new hope of making it to the last 16.
Senegal, on the other hand, must defeat Ecuador on Tuesday in order to advance following Ecuador’s 1-1 tie with the Netherlands.
“We have to think about the appropriate approach to the last match. We need to win to qualify for the last 16,” Aliou Cisse said.
“Our concentration must be better as we could have avoided the goal that we conceded [against Qatar], but the Ecuador match will be different.”
Cisse’s African champions, who were missing their talisman and record goalscorer, Sadio Mane, for the finals due to injury, were poor in their 2-0 loss to the Netherlands but improved their attacking performance against Qatar at the Al Thumama Stadium.
Famara Diedhiou and Ismail Jakobs replaced Pape Abdou Cisse and the injured Cheikhou Kouyate in Cisse’s starting XI.
“We started the second half well, went 2-0 up and then struggled a bit as Qatar were more aggressive and reduced the gap,” added Cisse, who has been in charge of Senegal since 2015.
“But once again we were better in transition and we managed to score the decisive third goal.
In 2002, Senegal made it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup. In 2018, they were eliminated in the group stage.