Tunisia’s head coach, Jalel Kadri, says the opening matches of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) in Cote d’Ivoire played so far have been eye-openers.
Kadri was making reference to the impressive performances of Mozambique and Equatorial Guinea against Egypt and Nigeria respectively, as well as Ghana’s shock defeat to Cape Verde in their respective opening matches.
Speaking during a pre-match conference on Monday, Kadri said playing against Namibia in the opening match was in no way an advantage as the tournament had already shown that there were no small teams in Africa.
According to reports that the 2004 champions will face Namibia in their opening Group E match on Tuesday.
“Namibia is a serious opponent, and we don’t have any easy team.
“The results in the opening rounds have shown that there is no small team in Africa as we saw, so we need to show them respect and play to our best ability,” cautioned Kadri.
Tunisia is making their 21st appearance in the competition, with this edition being the 16th in a row – a record in the history of the tournament thus far.
An unfavorable statistic that the coach will have to discard from his mind is the fact that Tunisia have failed to win any of their last four opening matches of the AFCON.
On his tournament objectives, Kadri was very modest in his response, saying that the team had prepared enough to go as far as possible in the competition.
“We will try to go as far as possible.
“We have teams that have good quality so we will try to win each match and go as far as possible. We must be respectful to all opponents.
“There are Africa’s best teams that are present, so ours is to do our best in every match and take it game by game,” the coach said.