AFCON
AFCON: Klopp hopeful Liverpool can retain Salah and Mane for vital matches
Jürgen Klopp has said he is optimistic Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané will be available for Liverpool’s trips to Leicester and Chelsea over the festive period after talks over delaying their departure to the Africa Cup of Nations.
Liverpool have approached the Egyptian and Senegalese football associations over the possibility of their key forwards reporting late for a tournament scheduled to be held in Cameroon between 9 January and 6 February. The club are seeking a similar arrangement with Guinea over Naby Keïta.
According to Fifa regulations the trio should join up with their international teams after Liverpool’s Boxing Day game against Leeds. But with crucial visits to Leicester on 28 December and Chelsea on 2 January, Liverpool want their departures delayed. That would mean Salah, Mané and Keïta missing only two Premier League fixtures, at home to Brentford and away to Crystal Palace.
The Liverpool manager said: “It’s not decided yet. I am an optimistic person, so I hope so, but it’s not written in stone and not completely in our hands.”
Liverpool travel to Wolves on Saturday before visiting Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday when, with the group won, Klopp is likely to rotate. That could see Nat Phillips make his first start of the season and Klopp, who describes the defender’s lack of playing time as unfair, says the 24-year-old could move in January. But he was effusive in praise of a player instrumental in Liverpool qualifying for this season’s Champions League.
Klopp said: “People often ask me which player made the biggest improvements under my leadership and I say Robert Lewandowski. That’s probably right, but not far off that is Nat Phillips, just in a completely different department.
“I remember when I saw Nat Phillips first. I spoke to him after the game and he’s one of the smartest players I ever worked with. I told him: ‘You know you are not the easiest on the eye?’ But he improved in pretty much everything since, and he’s not playing. Life is sometimes not fair and I can’t blame him. We cannot keep him for ever, that’s clear. We needed him, just to be safe, for that half-year.
“We will see what happens in the window. He was fine doing it because he’s a great guy but his development is absolutely insane … I would sign him for any club except Liverpool because we have him.”
Klopp, meanwhile, believes this week’s appointment of the Brazil World Cup winner Claudio Taffarel as an extra goalkeeping coach will have a major impact on the career prospects of the club’s young talent.
“For the boys who are not involved on a weekend we can really work with them properly and consistently,” he said. “We thought somebody with their real own opinion would be good. We want to challenge ourselves and improve the goalies. We had to buy the best goalie in the world for big money [Alisson]. That should not happen that often any more. We invest a lot in scouting and youth, and I think we have in Marcelo [Pitaluga] and Harvey [Davies] incredible talents.”
-The Guardian
The Libyan Football Federation (LFF) has sacked its Serbian coach, Milutin Sredojević who is popularly known as Micho.
This is coming ahead of Libya’s back-to-back Africa Cup of Nations clashes with Nigeria next month.
Paradoxically, Sports Village Square gathered that the coach’s contract was only recently renewed for six months before the axe fell on the Serbian.
His sack was precipitated by the results obtained in their teo matches of the AFCON qualifiers.
Libya drew 1-1 with Rwanda at home and lost 2-1 away to Benin Republic despite beig a goal up at half time.
The Libyan side, Mediterranean Knights are due to play against the Nigeria Super Eagles in Uyo on 6 October while the return leg holds on 14 October at the 11 July Stadium in Tripoli.
According to information Sports Village Square gathered from Tripoli, the Mediterranean Knights’ coach, Micho led the Libyan national team to win nine matches since taking over in October of last year, he failed to build a strong team due to his poor choices.
He also took a risk with the footballers chosen in the AFCON qualifiers, and the result was shocking to the Libyan sports audience.
According to sources close to the Libyan Football Federation, there is a strong tendency to sign a national coach to lead the Libyan team during the remaining qualifiers for the African Cup of Nations.
CAF President Patrice Motsepe has lashed out at Ghana and some other African countries whose home grounds were recently banned from hosting CAF matches owing to inadequate facilities. He made the remarks in Nairobi, Kenya during a press conference,
After the MatchDay 2 of the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, CAF ruled Ghana’s Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi as being inadequate to host international matches. Being the only approved ground in the country, Ghana will now look towards either Cote d’Ivoire or Togo for their remaining home matches of the Afcon qualifiers.
Other African countries without approved home grounds are: Djibouti, Chad, Niger, Eritrea, Gabon, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, São Tomé and Burundi.
Motsepe voiced his frustration over the recurring issue of nations being unable to host home games.
“Nothing frustrates me more than a national team or club side having to play home matches outside,” he stated.
He stressed the significance of playing in front of home fans, adding, “You can’t grow football if the national teams or club sides aren’t playing in front of their home fans.”
Motsepe reiterated CAF’s commitment to working with countries to ensure they have at least one suitable stadium to host international fixtures.
“Our conversations in every country are to make sure there is at least one stadium capable of hosting a CAF category C game,” he emphasized.
The on-going CAF AFCON Cote d’Ivoire 2023 Coaches Symposium in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire has brought together, the last three coaches that handled the Nigeria national football team.
Gernot Rohr, Jose Peseiro and Austin Eguavoen are part of the the elite coaches currently gathered in Abidjan.
Gernot Rohr whose tenure of 5 years and 55 matches is the longest ever by any coach in Nigeria, is currently handling Nigeria’s Africa Cupof Nations and World Cup qualifying rivals, Benin Republic. He was succeeded in the interim by Austin Eguavoen who is currently having another interim stint.
Peseiro left his position after the Africa Cup of Nations
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