World Cup Focus: Senegal coach Aliou Cisse says he can't ask players to avoid yellow cards

by Staff Reporter

Friday Jun 29, 2018. 16:00

Senegal national team coach Aliou Cisse says he cannot fault his players for losing out on reaching the 2018 FIFA World Cup knockout stages.

The Lions of Teranga boss was speaking after their 1-0 loss to Colombia on Thursday afternoon in Russia.

Senegal became the first team in World Cup history to be eliminated through FIFA's fair play rules, but their coach remains adamant that he would not have instructed his players to play any differently.

After falling to Colombia, Senegal sat even on points with Japan at number four and with the same number of goals as the Samurai Blue.

However, the Asians finished the group stage with only four yellow cards received, while Senegal had six, thus seeing the Senegalese crashing out of the global showpiece.

"I do not know if this rule is cruel or not, but I can't ask my players to jump on the court to not receive yellows," said the Senegalese coach.

"It's the law of football, the law of fair play, and we had less points in that aspect and we have to accept it.

"In any case, these are the rules of the game and we have to respect them, but we would have preferred to be eliminated in another way.

"African football is making a lot of progress, and we are going to continue in this line and I am sure we will do good things in the future - we are on the right track."

Moreover, Cisse also praised the participation of the other African national teams, despite the continent not being able to send any sides to the knockout stages.