SENEGAL PLOT TO END CHAN DROUGHT
SENEGAL B COACH PAPE BOUNA THIAW (PIC BY SYDNEY MAHLANGU )
Senegal were overdue and deserved AFCON champions in 2022 but despite their superpower status, their poor CAF African Nations Championship (CHAN) record is barely noticeable.
CHAN is a second tier AFCON for home-based players that CAF inaugurated in 2009.
In all, Senegal has strangely made just two CHAN appearances with the last one dating as far back as the second edition of the tournament at Sudan 2011.
Senegal made a group stage exit in Khartoum just two years after Zambia beat them to third spot in Cote d'Ivoire.
But for the last two years, Senegal’s domestic based-team has been busy on a project with successive appearances as guest side at the southern African region football championship, the COSAFA Cup.
Senegal have not disappointed on the trips south where they finished runners-up to hosts South Africa in 2021 at Nelson Mandela Bay and third in 2022 at the tournament Durban staged from July 5-17.
And as the 2023 CHAN qualifiers kickoff this weekend, Senegal will find out whether the COSAFA Cup guest side project, or parts of it, will suffice in the race to Algeria.
"Yes it is true that we have not been able to qualify for CHAN since 2011 but you have seen some quality players in our team and I am sure that when we get back to Senegal some of them will be in the team," Senegal B coach Pape Bouna Thiaw said in Durban on July 17 after beating Mozambique 4-2 on post-match penalties following a 1-1 draw to win COSAFA Cup Bronze.
"The issue here is that there is a huge demand for Senegal players in Europe but that is why I have a large team.
"So I am not sure some will be in the CHAN qualifiers because they will be leaving any time soon."
Senegal is away in Monrovia this Sunday to face Liberia in a first round, first leg qualifier.
The final leg is set for Dakar on July 31.
Success over the coming week for Senegal will see them face nemesis Guinea.
Guinea have been Senegal’s perennial bogey team in the CHAN race, standing in their qualification hopes ever since over the last decade.
Thiaw, though, remains upbeat that Senegal will overcome another prospective Guinea riddle despite the demand for Senegalese talent not only in Europe but on the continental too.
So far 23-year-old defender Malickou Ndoye is the first departure after the Durban tournament.
Ndoye has moved to Tanzania where he joins his ex-Teungueth FC club mate and 2022 CAF Goal of the Year winner Pape Osumane Sakho of Simba SC.
He has joined Simba's rival Azam on a two-year deal also armed with CAF Champions League group stage experience from the 2020/2021 season.
His arrival enhances Senegalese flavour at Azam where he joins fellow defender Racine Diouf who has been with the Ice Cream Boys since 2016.
The other export potential could be in 20-year-old goalkeeper Landing Badji, midfielder Jean Louis Diouf, strikers El Hadji Ndiaye and Rouly Sambou.
"But I believe we have sufficient talent in Senegal to build a good team for the qualifiers,” Thiaw said.
"Furthermore, we came here because our knowledge of Anglophone football is not very good. But we have learnt a lot about that aspect at COSAFA."
"As our CHAN opponent is Anglophone, so I think we will be well prepared now after what we have learnt at COSAFA."