The coach of the Ethiopian football team A’ Wubetu Abate indicated on Monday in Algiers that the match against Algeria, on Tuesday at the Nelson Mandela Stadium in Baraki (20:00), represented “a challenge for us in a full stadium on crack” , on the occasion of Day 2 (Gr.A) of the CHAN-2022 African Nations Championship (postponed to 2023) in Algeria (January 13-February 4).
“This game is a challenge for us, we will face a good Algerian team in a stadium that will be packed. The most important thing is to recover between the two games. The Algerians played before us, so they will be physically fresher. We go going into this game with the intention of winning to get back into the race for qualification in the next round. We are ready to play against Algeria with full confidence,” Abate said at a press conference held at the Baraki Stadium.
Absent from the last two editions of CHAN, Ethiopia, whose majority of players make up the A team, settled for a draw against Mozambique (0-0) for their debut in this competition. Algeria, on the other hand, had a successful start by dominating Libya (1-0) in the opening match.
“We resumed our preparation right after the first match, we didn’t have enough time to work well, we allowed the players to recover and mentally prepare for this second important match,” he added.
The Ethiopian coach had already faced the host country, Cameroon, during the last African Cup of Nations CAN-2021 (postponed to 2022).
“We will be faced with the same scenario that we faced in Cameroon at the last AFCON, but it is two different approaches. We are here to give experience to the local player, to play such a competition in a full stadium . privilege for us,” he said.
In terms of the workforce, the Ethiopian coach has announced the injury package for attacking midfielder Bunaro Wondimageon Hailu (Hawassa City).
“He had an injury against Mozambique, but today he will have an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging, ed. note), he has a knee problem, he will be dropped. We don’t know the situation of his knee, he suffered in the first game , but the other players are physically ready for this game”.
On his part, midfielder Mesud Mohammed (Adama Kenema) felt that the players had recovered physically, aiming to approach this game with all their means.
“It will be a different meeting than our first match. We have recovered well and go into this meeting with all our strength”.
And to finish: “We created chances against Mozambique but we lacked success. We need to be more effective against Algeria, we learned a lot from the first match”.
The Ethiopian team conducts its final training session this Monday evening, at the ground next to the Nelson Mandela Stadium from 8.30 p.m.
APS
