Africa: TotalEnergies U17 AFCON One Box Ticked, One to Go, Says Mali's Coulibaly

12 May 2023
Confederation of African Football (Giza)

Mali's entire arsenal will now be trained on Morocco and by extension a stab at reaching the final, after they waded through the quarters of the TotalEnergies U17 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) beating Congo 3-0.

Head coach Soumaila Coulibaly says having achieved their first target to qualify for the World Cup, they will give their all to earn a record extending third U17 AFCON title.

"The first objective was to do everything to qualify for the World Cup and now this is achieved. We will now prepare for the semi-final and then seek to win the title. Once again, we will give a good account of ourselves to win the title," the tactician said after guiding his team to the victory over Congo.

He adds; "We will prepare and plan well against Morocco. We already know a bit about Morocco and they know us too so it will not be an easy match."

Mali have won the U17 AFCON title twice, in 2015 and 2017 and are now looking to become only the first team to win the title three times.

Reflecting back to the victory over Congo, Coulibaly said it was a result of a perfect preparation and a good execution of tactics by his players.

"We watched Congo against Senegal and Algeria and we just needed to impose our style of play. We did well, but we still need to work because we are yet to reach the technical levels that I would want us to," further noted the coach.

He will now hope to raise the levels further as they prepare for Morocco, a side that showed their ambition with a well worked win over hosts Algeria.

Read the original article on CAF.

Tagged:
Copyright © 2023 Confederation of African Football. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.

AllAfrica publishes around 400 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.