Burkina, Comoros, Bertrand Trio discussed on ESPN FC

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I think Tunisia, what we saw against Nigeria, that so well discipline, so well organized, they weren't phased by this Nigerian team who had been rampant in the group stage who had romped through that group. I think this one's a very tough one to call. I'd love to see Bertrand trio, I really take the game by the scruff of his neck because that the struggle is not because we see moments of excellence from him, which are then followed up by a skewed shot into the stands or a pass to the opposition. I would love if he could really show what he could do in this space. I'm going Burkina Faso. I'm going to, I think. Really? Yeah, yeah, well, because we're in the game. Well, because you're better late than never. And I want to ask you about the tournament as a whole. I know I'm getting some broader questions about African football. But obviously we have to talk about the tragedy that took place when Cameroon played Comoros, the stampede, which sadly left, I think it was 8 people losing their lives. You were there, can you talk a little bit about what you knew when you knew it and how that affected the mood? So obviously that the context of that match is very important because we went into the game with this remarkable story about the Comoros, not having any goalkeepers. So the attention of myself and I think the vast majority of the media was on who's going to play in goal for comrades. We already had a remarkable kind of unprecedented situation in Asian cup. And then as the game went on reports started filtering through about what was happening outside the ground. And that had been helping these things happen. The reports come in drips. So you have kind of reports of ruska, which is like kind of stampede or kind of rioting or jostling. Then you have kind of reports of people injured. Then you have reports of bodies and then the deaths of the death toll starts becoming clearer. I heard sirens during the game, but has anyone who's been so much in Africa will know that that's not an unheard of thing. You're going to have sirens a company dignitaries or a company, celebrities to games. So that in itself wasn't anything out of the ordinary. It was only later that you reflect and they were ambulances that were taking people from the site of the India and bodies away to medical facilities. What was the atmosphere like? Is it terrible? I don't know how Catholic to the investigation. I think there's already a few issues with getting information from the Cameron police government and et cetera to find to find what happened and who was our fault to cause this. And how has been the whole tournament for you as an experience? And just on the back of that, just when you talk about the investigation and calf and people pulling out old stereotypes about Africa, let's not forget that what 6 months ago, we were at a final of the European Championships. 6 months away and there were thankfully no deaths, but there was chaos on the stampede and people overwhelmed. So this is not something peculiarly African, we saw it happen a few miles away from here at Wembley Stadium. Yeah, so on that on that last point, cafe had a hearing yesterday with the local organizing committee and there is an investigation that's taking place to understand the circumstances understand the causes, understand the context that gave rise to this tragedy. Batteries must be the president said on Tuesday that there will be no more games taking place at a lemba until he's received a short answer that the reasons behind this would be identified and that guarantees can be made that it won't happen again. So the quarterfinals have been moved away from a land bay and it remains to be seen whether the semi at the final will take place there. Gabby, you're absolutely right that this is not just an African problem. However, we have seen whereas Wembley got away with it. You could say with no deaths with broken ribs with injuries but with no deaths, we have seen in Africa Abidjan Ellis part Oppenheimer across stadium port said obviously different reasons there. Madagascar, Africa has a track record as far as poor stadium safety resulting in death is concerned. And I think this is a real opportunity for what set early in his presidency to really establish I wrote a toolkit a stadium safety toolkit to ensure that this kind of thing becomes maybe a member can be the end of this rather than another statistic rather than just another chapter in what is a very tragic track record. I'm just fascinated by something going back just on the pitch in that game. Obviously, you had the Comoros burgundies, the reserve left back playing in Chicago. Thank you. Jules. So I'm watching this on television and you can see he looks like an outfield player. He doesn't use his hands. At some point, I think he made the one save on the line where he reaches across with his long handed. What did it feel like when you were there when you're seeing him in the stadium off the ball? Did he just look weird for like 90 minutes? Well, the fact that he's I think 5 foot 7 certainly didn't help. He's not a natural frame or build for a goalkeeper. I spoke down that there afterwards actually. It was quite amazing how even though commerce had gone out, even though there had been a controversy over the goalkeepers, even though there had been this early red card for najim Abdul. Al hado was actually that was probably the greatest night of his life because he was so delighted to have made his nation about this guy's 30. He's been playing for commerce since 2014, but the tournament was kind of in danger of passing by. And actually, asked him how was he so cool?.