The female national team coach of Mali, Saloum Mohamed Houssein, says his side will not succumb to Ghana in our next game, ready to fix the broken pieces after his side lost 2-1 to Cameroun last Saturday.
He believes they will not be underdogs in their second Group A game against the Black Queens who won their first game by edging Algeria 1-0 at Accra Sports Stadium.
Malians took the lead in the 56th minute courtsey Aissata Traore strike but the Camerounians responded strongly with goals from Meffometou Tcheno Falone and Nchout Njoya Ajara in the 70th and 72nd minutes respectively to turn the tide in their favour.
After the match, Coach Houssein was confident his side would bounce back against the Ghana on Tuesday. “We lacked a bit of concentration and that is what caused our lost be we have not lost courage because we are still in the competition."
“The fact that we lost to Cameroun does not mean we will succumb to Ghana in our next game. We are going to train more and we will continue to fight to at least pick a point,” he stressed.
He admitted the Les Aigles Femelles were a bit naive and allowed their opponents to punish them for taking their foot off the accelerator.
“We tried our best to play a very good game but we could not get deeply involved with the attack. In the second half, we were able to score a goal but we found it difficult to make our mark but we will try our best in our second game.”
After the goal, Mali then set to defend their lead allowing Cameroun to throw everything at them and were rewarded with the equalizer when a corner kick by Nchout was poorly cleared by the Malian defence for Mefomettou to tap home the rebound.
The Camerounians were not done yet as two minutes later, Aboudi burst forward with the ball before laying a pass to Nchout who side-footed it into the net for the winning goal.
Mali have never gone beyond the group stage in all their seven appearances at the tournament.