The five African selections, qualified for the World Cup hosted by Qatar from November 20 to December 18, will compete in the competition exclusively with “local” coaches on the bench, which is a first in the history of the World Cup.
These five technicians, who will be part of Qatar, have the ambition to take their troops to the feat of qualifying for the last four of the World Cup, and to exceed the threshold of the quarter-finals previously reached by the Nigeria, Cameroon and Ghana.
These are Walid Regragui, coach of the Moroccan national team, Aliou Cissé (Senegal), Jalel Kadri (Tunisia), Otto Addo (Ghana), as well as Rigobert Song (Cameroon) who will have the heavy task of proving that “local” coaches have nothing to envy to foreign coaches and show all their assets and their tactical quality.
African participation in the 2022 World Cup, which carries the “local” touch, will be an opportunity to demonstrate that breaking with the tradition of foreign coaches is a paying bet. It will also be a question of highlighting the African identity during this world football high mass and of shining on the sporting level by achieving honorable results.
Appointed coach of the Atlas Lions until 2026, replacing the Bosnian Vahid Halilhodžić, Walid Regragui (47) will have to take up the challenge of leading his group to sign good performances on the ground and thus meet the expectations of Moroccan supporters , lover of the beautiful game.
Former Moroccan international, Regragui, who was assistant coach of Rachid Taoussi in 2012, has accumulated good experience at the head of several Moroccan and Arab teams, winning several national and continental titles, which earned him to succeed Vahid Halilhodžić as coach. from Morocco.
Under the leadership of Walid Regragui, the Atlas Lions will be called upon to achieve good results in the various competitions, at their head the World Cup in Qatar.
As for the Cameroonian selection, it will play the World Cup with the former star defender of the Indomitable Lions Rigobert Song, on the bench. After a long career full of victories and trophies, including the CAN in 2000 and 2002 as a player, Song (46) will also try to shine with Cameroon as a coach.
The former Liverpool player, who managed to qualify Cameroon for the World Cup by dismissing Algeria in the last qualifying round at the end of the suspense, will count on his experience at the highest level to carry out his mission at the head of the Cameroonian selection at the World Cup and sign a remarkable career in this competition.
The Teranga Lions, galvanized by the title of CAN 2021, will try to ride this wave of success and shine on a global scale under the leadership of Aliou Cissé (46 years old). The former Senegalese international, who took the reins of Senegal in 2015, has managed over time to leave his mark on the Senegalese team and to impose his tactical touch and his coaching style.
Senegal, which was housed in Group A alongside Qatar, the host country, the Netherlands and Ecuador, has hopes of going as far as possible at the World Cup and confirming that the title of the CAN n was not an isolated feat.
For its part, Tunisia is counting on its coach Jalel Kadri (51) to sign an honorable course at the Qatari World Cup.
Although he does not have the same career as Aliou Cissé or Rigobert Song as a player, Kadri, who managed to qualify the Carthage Eagles for the 2022 World Cup at the expense of Mali, has a long experience as a coach who has started in 2001 and during which he was assistant coach several times.
As for Ghana, Otto Addo, who made a name for himself as a player in the Bundesliga, will be in charge of the national team at the World Cup in Qatar. Appointed as head of the Black Stars, replacing Serbian Milovan Rajevac, after the team’s poor results at CAN 2021 and an early elimination in the 1st round, Otto Addo (47) managed to qualify Ghana for the World Cup for the fourth time in five editions, by overcoming Nigeria, one of the strongest teams in Africa.
For his first experience as head coach, after having already held the position of assistant coach at Borussia Dortmund and Hamburg, Otto Addo will have a lot to do at the 2022 World Cup with the Black Stars who inherited Group H alongside Portugal, Uruguay and South Korea.
After having opted for long years for foreign technicians, the African selections finally take the bet of “local” coaches during the Qatari World Cup, with the ambition to achieve good results and to sign honorable courses.