Seychelles coach: We knew we won’t qualify for AFCON

The Pirates of Seychelles head coach, Gavin Jeanne has stressed that they were thrilled with their performance against the Super Eagles even though they were beaten 3-1 at the Stephen Keshi Stadium, Asaba in the final game of the AFCON qualifiers.

Gavin said that right from the beginning of the qualifiers that they were not expected to make it out from Group E because they knew that with just a population of 75,000 it would be difficult to compete against teams who are in their millions.

He said to them they won the game against the Eagles after they held the Nigerian team to a 1-1 draw at the end of the first half and were even still very competitive in the second half before they lost steam in the final part of the game due to inexperience.

The tactician also failed to tip the Eagles as the main favourites for the 2019 AFCON but pointed out that all the remaining 23 teams also have equal chances of lifting the trophy in Egypt.
“Everyone that qualified for the AFCON has a chance to win it. I won’t say that the Eagles will win it,” Gavin told SportingLife.ng

“We really enjoyed our stay in Nigeria because it was a different experience for us. We were not expected to qualify for the AFCON from Group E. It was just for the experience. We never had any chance right from the start.

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“We are just 75,000 people and Nigeria and others in our group have their population in millons.”