Democratic Republic of Congo head coach, Otis Ngoma has taken responsibility for their 3-0 loss to Senegal which confirmed their exit from the 2022 African Nations Championship.
The Leopards – who finished with 10 men on the Sunday after Kevin Mondeko’s red card – only earned two points which saw them finish bottom in Group B behind the Teranga Lions, Ivory Coast and Uganda.
It marks the first time the Congolese have failed to progress out of the tournament’s group phase and Ngoma feels his players lack match fitness in Algeria.
“I am disappointed with the performance. I take responsibility for this,” Ngoma told CAF website.
“I brought players here who we considered the best, but now we realized that they couldn’t deliver. This generation of players are at the end of their dominance. I took over in September and by November we were playing the league, unfortunately we had players lagging physically. I repeat I take responsibility for my choices.”
Ngoma’s counterpart, Pape Thiaw said Senegal came to Algeria to make a statement and it led them to finish top of what he described as the “group of death”.
“We really needed to play the quarter-final. We finished first from a group of death. Like I said from the beginning, we came here to make a statement. Youth prevailed over experience today,” Thiaw said.
“We were faster than DR Congo. That really helped us. When they went down to ten we did our best to make the most of the numerical advantage.
“We took four days to study Congo and identify their weaknesses to undo them. We are satisfied that everything went well. As the game went on we became favorites. We were more patient maybe because we needed a draw and they needed a win.”
