Football: 2015 Cosafa Cup |06 May 2015

Seychelles’ 20-man squad named

The Seychelles Football Federation (SFF) has released its final 20-man selection that will represent the country at the 2015 Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa) Cup which will be held from May 17-30 in South Africa.

Coach Ulrich ‘Keker’ Mathiot has named a squad that’s relatively unchanged from the team who lost 0-2 to Kenya in a friendly match in March, with Foresters’ Brian Dorby being the only newcomer to the side. Last season’s top scorer Rennick Esther of La Passe will be handed the task of finding the goals for Seychelles alongside the attacking prowess of footballer of the year Gervais Waye-Hive and Archille Henriette.

In defence, the centre-half duo of Benoit Marie and Jones Joubert will offer protection to either Vincent Euphrasie or Kitson Julie in goal, with Yannick Manoo, Colin Esther and Mervin Mathiot expected to be the engines in midfield.

Coach Mathiot told Sports Nation that he is to play a more offensive football this time out rather than rely on defending.

“In the past we have always seemed to lay back and invite our opponents to attack us with the hope of catching them on the break, but this time I want to change this mentality and attack our opponents in search of goals,” said coach Mathiot.

Coach Mathiot, who is working alongside Northern Dynamo’s Cliff Nolin, also pointed out that the team will be travelling to South Africa early so that they can get more time to prepare for the competition as the team have not had much time to train locally.

“We usually train on Mondays, but that is often a problem as some players are still recovering after playing during the weekend and travelling to South Africa early will allow us a few extra days of intensive training, where our main focus will be on our tactical flexibility,” stated coach Mathiot.

Seychelles have been drawn in group A alongside Namibia, Zimbabwe and regional rivals Mauritius. Seychelles are the lowest ranked country at the tournament behind Mauritius in the latest Fédération Internationale de Football Association (Fifa) rankings. Seychelles is ranked 189th out of 200 countries while Mauritius occupies the 181st position. The next ranking will be published tomorrow.

The first test for our country’s team will be against Namibia on May 17 before they take on Zimbabwe on May 19 and finally Mauritius on May 21.
“Our focus is of course on the first game against Namibia, as with any competition it is important to get off to a good start and win the first game, which is what we will be looking for,” coach Mathiot said.

Group B comprises Lesotho, Madagascar, Swaziland and Tanzania, with only the group winners qualifying for the quarterfinals.

The winners of group B will meet Ghana, while the group A winners will go up against Zambia. The other quarterfinals will be between Mozambique and Malawi, while hosts South Africa will take on Botswana. Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, South Africa and Botswana will all enter the competition at the quarterfinal stage. Angola and the Comoros will not be competing in the tournament and thus have been replaced by Ghana and Tanzania.

“This competition will give the players the opportunity to really show what they can do as we have other competitive matches coming up along with the Indian Ocean Island Games (IOIG) in August,” said coach Mathiot.

Seychelles will meet Algeria on June 13 in the first leg of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers, while the country’s team also have the 2016 African Nations Championship (Chan) qualifiers to compete in.

The Cosafa Cup final will be played on May 30 and DSTV subscribers will be able to enjoy all the matches live on the Supersport 4 and Supersport 9 channels.

National team selection: Vincent Euphrasie and Kitson Cecile (goalkeepers), Bertrand Esther, Jones Joubert, Benoit Marie, Gino Agathine, Senky Vidot, Ronny Hoareau and Ahmed Maurice (defenders), Yannick Manoo, Brian Dorby, Gerard Basset, Colin Esther, Mervin Mathiot and Rashim Padayachy (midfielders), Archille Henriette, Karl Hall, Rennick Esther, Ryan Antat and Gervais Waye-Hive (attackers).

The other members of the delegation are Justin Mathiot (head of delegation), Ulrich Mathiot (head coach), Cliff Nolin (assistant coach), Danny Laurette (goalkeeper coach), Michel Albert (manager), Sam Moses and Gracey Nartey (medical officers).

S. N.