Cisse will step down as Senegal’s coach

Aliou Cisse will not be renewed as Senegal’s coach, officials announced on Wednesday. He had a successful nine-year run in charge of the team, leading them to their first Africa Cup of Nations title and two World Cup qualifying spots.

Cisse was under more and more pressure after Senegal shocked everyone by losing to hosts Ivory Coast in the last 16 of the 2023 Cup of Nations.

Five wins in a row for the team since then, but draws at home against the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burkina Faso, along with criticism of their style of play, led the country’s sports ministry, which pays the national team coach, to decide that something had to be done.

The Senegalese Football Federation (FSF) said in a statement, “The FSF would like to thank Aliou Cisse for his good cooperation and the great results he has achieved as the head of the different national selections he has been in charge of since his arrival in 2011. The FSF wishes him all the best for the future.”

FSF said Cisse quit because he didn’t meet the terms of his last deal, which ended at the end of August. Those terms included winning the 2023 Cup of Nations and making it to the quarterfinals of the 2022 World Cup.

A “regression of our national team in the FIFA rankings and the risk of disaffection between our national team and the Senegalese (public)” also played a part, they said.

In order to prepare for the Cup of Nations, the FSF will choose a temporary technical team to lead the team in two games against Malawi, one at home on Oct. 11 and one away four days later.

It is said that Cisse, who is 48 years old, led Senegal to the semifinals of the 2002 World Cup with a group of players who are known as “golden young men.”

During a short time in 2012, he was the substitute coach of the national team. Three years later, he took over full-time.

He led Senegal to entry for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. In the 2022 tournament, they made it to the round of 16 before losing to England. Algeria beat them in the ultimate game of the 2019 Cup of Nations.

Two years later, when they beat Egypt in the final, they made up for that loss by becoming African winners for the first time.