AFCON 2021: Aliou Cisse’s Senegal continue to maintain false image with quarter-final win over Equatorial Guinea

The Teranga Lions of Senegal defeated Equatorial Guinea 3-1 in the last of four quarter-final matches at the ongoing 2021 Africa Cup of Nations.

The results means Senegal advance to the semi-finals as they remain on course to fulfil their tag as pre-tournament favourites to win the whole thing.

But the thing is, despite getting the results, the same problems such as lack of creativity and over-reliance on individual talent persists.

On surface level, it looks like Senegal improved greatly in this game, after all, they did win 3-1 which makes this criticism seem a tad unfair but upon further review, it looks like Aliou Cisse has done it again, another impressive result papering over the cracks of a below-par display.

Senegal scored three goals in this game which is as much as they did in the four previous games in this competition combined.

All three goals were from open play as well which is already more than the two open play goals they scored in their previous games.

The first goal was a product of Sadio Mane’s ingenuity, the Liverpool winger continues to bail out his coach, this time by being more intentional in grabbing creative responsibility which was missing in their previous four games.

Mane threaded a beautiful through-ball past the dumbfounded Equatorial Guinea defence which was latched onto by centre-forward, Famara Diedhiou and tucked in for the lead.

That was as good as it got for Senegal in the first half as they struggled to create anything of note outside of Sadio Mane’s involvement as is their modus operandi.

Equatorial Guinea got better in the second half and started to force the issue more which led to a penalty after Kalidou Koulibaly had clearly handled the ball in the box or so we thought.

But referee Victor Gomes overturned his original decision upon VAR review and awarded a drop-ball instead. That was another moment in the game that helped contribute to Senegal’s false image.

If that decision had gone Equatorial Guinea’s way it might have been them who would be looking forward to a semi-final clash with Burkina Faso, fine margins.

The Equatorial Guineans did get the goal their second-half performance deserved, Jannick Buyla caught Edouard Mendy off-guard in the Senegal goal with a snapshot in the 57th minute.

With the game now level and momentum with the Equatorial Guineans, Aliou Cisse threw a desperate hail-mary attempt to rescue the game with Chekhou Kouyate, Ismaila Sarr and Bamba Dieng all thrown on within eight minutes of Buyla’s goal.

In typical Aliou Cisse fashion, two of those substitutes scored to help Senegal win 3-1 and make him look like a tactical genius when in fact, he was just throwing everything he had at them.

Kouyate scored just three minutes after getting subbed on to make it 2-1 after benefiting from a defensive mix-up as they failed to clear their lines from a Senegal corner-kick.

The third goal by Ismaila Sarr was a very well engineer one, credit where it is due. Koulibaly picked out left-back Saliu Ciss with a gorgeous cross-field diagonal who in turn put it on a plate for Sarr to convert.

But you have to take into account the fact that Equatorial Guinea’s spirits were already deflated at the time after dominating the second half and wasting their efforts by conceding such a cheap goal.

The fact is Equatorial Guinea had 64% possession in the second half and completed more than double of Senegal’s passes, 183-91 which paints the picture that they were the better side.

So once again, it would appear that Aliou Cisse’s Senegal have gotten away with another one, and they may well do it all through the tournament but even if they win AFCON 2021 like this, it is still a false image.