AFCON: Egypt Coach, Queiroz Reacts To 1-0 Defeat To Nigeria

Egypt coach, Carlos Queiroz, has blamed his team’s lackadaisical attitude on the pitch last night as the reason they were defeated by Nigeria at ongoing Africa Cup of Nations tournament.

Naija News reports that the Super Eagles on Tuesday trashed the Pharaohs in a 1-0 win, thanks to a good finish by Kelechi Iheanacho.

Iheanacho scores the winner for Nigeria in the AFCON game. Though the Super Eagles could have closed the winning margin to 2-0 when super header Taiwo Awoniyi missed a header in the game that hit the cross bar

Nigeria had called for a VAR review when Awoniyi’s ball hit the cross bar, Senegalese referee Papa Gassama, however, looked away.

Lamenting the defeat, Egypt coach said, “The performance in the first half was very poor and this is the truth, we were not on the field. We started playing in the second half and there was no reason for this failure and loss against Nigeria.

“We lost this match but there are six points we must get against Sudan and Guinea Bissau to qualify.”

Meanwhile, the Executive Committee of the Confederation of African Football on Friday, January 7 held a meeting that reached conclusions favourable to participating nations in the upcoming African Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2021 tournament.

Naija News understands that winners’ prize money for the tournament which is starting on Sunday in Cameroon was earlier pegged at 4.5 million dollars.

However, at Friday’s executive, a raise in the prize was made and the Champions of the AFCON 2021 games will now return home with whopping prize money of five million U.S. dollars (about N2.8 billion).

The new prize is representing an increase of about 11 percent from the initial.

Naija News understands that runners-up will get 2.75 million dollars in prize money, up from 2.5 million dollars and an increase of 10 percent also.

The prize monies for the semi-finalists and the quarter-finalists were also increased, with the total sum of the increase on all prize monies being 1.85 million dollars.

Commenting on the increase, CAF stated officially that the increase was deliberate as it was in line with its commitment to rewarding merit performance and enhancing the status of the competition, which is now in its 33rd edition.