{"id":22159,"date":"2026-01-08T14:58:53","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T12:58:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/malis-mental-approach-key-to-upsetting-senegal\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:13","slug":"malis-mental-approach-key-to-upsetting-senegal","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/malis-mental-approach-key-to-upsetting-senegal\/","title":{"rendered":"Mali\u2019s mental approach key to upsetting Senegal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Mali overcame heavy odds and had to dig deep to reach the Africa Cup of Nations quarter-finals and will need the same mental strength against heavily fancied Senegal on Friday.<\/div>\n<div id=\"x_x_ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Mali were down to 10 men after defender Woyo Coulibaly was sent off in the 26th minute of last Saturday\u2019s round-of-16 tie against Tunisia in Casablanca but held out to force a 1-1 draw after extra time and advance on penalties.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cAgainst Tunisia we needed to show strong mentality as it was 10 against 11,\u201d said Serie A-based midfielder Lassana Coulibaly at the pre-match press conference on Thursday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cWe will need the same mentality against Senegal. We want to progress and we feel we have nothing to lose. We are not the favourites but with our mental, physical strength we feel we can win.\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Senegal are the second-ranked team in Africa and, with 10 goals scored in the tournament, they look strong candidates to advance into next week\u2019s semi-finals.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cThe eight teams who have qualified for the quarters are all the big footballing countries in Africa but I think we are playing the best,\u201d added Mali coach Tom Saintfiet.<\/div>\n<div>\u201cThe only team they\u2019ve lost to over the last years was Brazil, they even beat England. It\u2019s a stable team but also very strong who score easily, who don\u2019t give up much and are very dangerous.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u201cBut we are also a good team. We haven\u2019t lost at this tournament, and we played well against Morocco and Tunisia, two countries who qualified for the World Cup,\u201d the Belgian-born coach said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Mali are, however, also through to the last eight without winning a game. They drew their three group games and then needed penalties against Tunisia in the first knockout round.<\/div>\n<div>\u201cWe haven\u2019t created a lot of goal-scoring opportunities, but we\u2019ve played with discipline and we won\u2019t be changing much around our approach. We\u2019ve got players with good ability and a very good mentality,\u201d Saintfiet said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Mali are the only country in the last eight without previous Cup of Nations success. They were runners-up in 1972 and have been semi-finalists five times since.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21707,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,20],"class_list":["post-22159","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Mali were down to 10 men after defender Woyo Coulibaly was sent off in the 26th minute.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Mali were down to 10 men after defender Woyo Coulibaly was sent off in the 26th minute.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25554,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22159\/revisions\/25554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=22159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}