U17 World Cup: Mali 2-1 Ghana - Black Cats coach Fabin Samuels insists match should not have gone ahead

Swapnaneel Parasar

U17 World Cup: Mali 2-1 Ghana - Black Cats coach Fabin Samuels insists match should not have gone ahead image

Ghana coach Fabin Samuel could not hide his displeasure with the refereeing decisions in the post match conference following their 2-1 loss to African rivals Mali in the first quarter-final of the FIFA Under-17 World Cup at Guwahati.

The Black Cats coach said: "Disappointing result and the field didn’t help much. Normally I don’t talk about officiating but I will have to complain as we got a definite equaliser as it was too long when the referee whistled for a foul and we don't understand it, but if the goal would have stood it would have changed the course of the game."

Samuels attributed Mali's second of the night as a blow his team could not recover from. "The rain didn't help matters but we didn’t start very well and couldn't take chances that we made. The very bad second goal we conceded really killed us and we lost the game," he said.

The match was played in horrible conditions with torrential rainfalls heaving down on Guwahati in the last few days and Samuels was at pains to point out that the conditions were not fit for a football match.

"We’ve not encountered anything like this before. I thought the game should have been abandoned and played in some another time but those who are organising they said we have to play so we played," he said.

His Mali counterpart Jonas Komla on the other hand praised his wards for adapting well to the difficult conditions.

"Our players are well conditioned for these conditions when we played in difficult countries we trained in the rain and we modified our strategy and we also tried that our mind remains on our head," Komla said.

He praised Ghana for playing a tough match while commending his side's ability to adapt to the conditions.

"I really encourage Ghana for a very good match they are one of the best opponent teams, we played our best in the conditions in which it was raining we tried to master the conditions and the team who committed the minimum fouls, they won the match," the coach remarked.

Komla was not thinking about reaching the finals just yet as his side have done in the last edition where they finished runners-up.

"Want to go step by step not thinking about the final. When we came for the tournament we thought about getting out of the pool and now we are not just thinking about the final!"

 

Swapnaneel Parasar