Sudan head coach Burhan Tia has cited recurring mistakes as a reason for the country’s poor outing at the 2022 African Nations Championship.
The two-time CHAN bronze medallists finished third in Group C, failing to win the two games in which they contested against Ghana and Madagascar.
The 3-0 loss to the Malagasy on Monday sealed their fate and Tia asserted his charges were simply off-shape which impacted the outcome of results in Algeria.
“The results were unexpected. We wanted our presence to create a greater impact. Just participating is not enough,” Tia said on the CAF website.
“In this tournament, we made many mistakes. We were not in good shape. The defensive system and even the movements of the strikers were not good. All these impacted our performance and led to defeats.
“Our mistakes were very frequent. There was no mental presence, that caused us everything.”
Sudan had high hopes of having a good CHAN outing in Algeria but Tia highlighted being under too much pressure which his players couldn’t handle.
“Our ambitions and goals were very big. We were keen on presenting a good performance in front of the people of Constantine. We must benefit from the lessons of our mistakes and better ourselves in future,” he continued.
“There was much pressure on our players. There was no concentration. It looks like this tournament was bigger than our players. There were many players that were absent from the preparations and that affected the team. Some didn’t turn up in this tournament.”
Tia went on to stress the need to evaluate Sudan’s performance when the team returns to base in Khartoum.
“I think that my main goal now is to evaluate this experience. When I return to Khartoum, I will write a report on the strengths and weaknesses that led to these results. It will be a comprehensive report of everything,” he said.
Sudan were previously at CHAN on two occasions, first as hosts in 2011 and again in 2018 in Morocco. They finished third on both occasions, defeating current CHAN hosts Algeria and Libya respectively.
