The coach of the Egyptian team Carlos Queiroz said his team didn’t get their tactics spot on in the 0-1 defeat in their first game of the 2021 delayed Africa Cup of Nations holding in Cameroon.
Egypt were downed by a strike by Kelechi Iheanacho in the 30th minute who profited from an attack initiated down the right hand side of the defence of Egypt, where Nantes winger Moses Simon was a threat all game long.
Reacting to the defeat, the Portuguese coach cited the space and time given to Simon as part of the reason why his team conceded the goal that decided the match.
“We didn’t play well in the first half and with the way Nigeria played from the left, we couldn’t handle it early enough and it led to the goal”, he explained.
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He however insist that the outcome of the game would have been different if the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) ruled in favour of his team when they had a penalty shout in the Nigerian box.
“In the second half, there was a very clear penalty for us that the referee didn’t award and the VAR did not intervene,” Queiroz said.
“Maybe at that time, the VAR was not working.
“There was clearly a penalty. It wasn’t our day, it wasn’t also a good day for the refereeing. Even my grandmother would have awarded it a penalty.
“It is a disaster because there are VAR referees. It is unacceptable. Watch the incident yourself. It’s unbelievable that with all these referees, no one noticed the penalty,” he added.
