2024-03-21 16:12:39
His Madagascar team was one of the sensations of CAN 2019 in Egypt, reaching the quarter-finals in their first participation. French coach Nicolas Dupuis hopes to repeat the feat with South Sudan, currently 166th in the Fifa ranking, as the young country’s CAN 2025 preliminary round begins Friday March 22 against Sao Tome and Principe. Interview.
Published on: 03/21/2024 – 5:12 p.m.
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He knows the recipe and hopes to reproduce it successfully. Nicolas Dupuis, 56, was named head of the South Sudan national team in October 2023 and is preparing to play in the preliminary qualifying round for CAN 2025 against Sao Tome and Principe.
Starting from very far away does not scare the French coach. Between 2016 and 2023, he took the reins of the Madagascar team. During the 2019 edition of the African Cup, his Barea (the Zébus Editor’s note) also competed in the preliminary qualifying round. Which did not prevent the Zébus from qualifying for the first CAN in their history, finishing first in their group and even qualifying for the quarter-finals. An adventure which ended somewhat in a fishtail when Madagascar missed qualification for CAN 2023 due to a defeat against the modest Central African Republic.
Read alsoCAN 2025: the calendar and all the results of the preliminary round
If “Mada” still has a special place in his heart, Nicolas Dupuis is now fully invested in his new challenge: moving South Sudan forward and why not cooking a new surprise from the chef for CAN 2025 in Morocco.
France 24: How did you become coach of South Sudan?
Nicolas Dupuis: I waited until my contract with Madagascar ended to sign elsewhere. South Sudan, two other countries, contacted me between August and September. They called me at night, once, twice. They seemed very interested and brought me in to tour the facilities.
I was very well received in Juba, I told myself that there was the same potential here as in Madagascar with the possibility of starting from an almost blank sheet of paper to try to write it and advance the selection .
It’s an English-speaking country so it’s also a personal challenge for me after having only worked in French-speaking countries.
What areas of development do you see?
We start from the same starting point. When I arrived in Madagascar seven years ago, there was almost everything to do. There was a catastrophic synthetic pitch in Majunga (Madagascar, Editor’s note). Here in Juba, it’s the same. There is only one synthetic pitch which is not even up to standard but a stadium has just been created. The local championship is not yet professional but has potential. And there are people who love football and who live football.
I have a contract for three years. The ambition is to work these three years trying to move all that forward. We will try to improve our Fifa ranking. There, we are forced to do a preliminary round because our ranking is precisely catastrophic.
It’s a fun wink. At CAN 2019, the epic with Mada began with a preliminary round against Sao Tomé in 2018. I would like this preliminary round to start on the same basis. The level is similar between the two teams and it will come down to very little. For me, they have a little more experience. So I would take a qualification while struggling a bit like in 2019.
You have played two matches so far at the helm of the Bright Stars: a defeat against Senegal and a draw against Mauritania. What do you think of these first matches? ?
For the first match, to be very honest, I didn’t know the players… I had arrived two days before, so did they. We had two practices before playing…. I was unable to really know who could play in a particular place, in a particular position. It was a discovery and it was against Senegal in Senegal, so that frankly didn’t make things easy. At the end 4-0, but we existed a little in the second half by limiting the damage and we could even have scored.
For the second match against Mauritania, it was a little better. We had three days of training and I already felt better. We were 0-0 and we could almost have won with a penalty at the end of the match. Afterwards, Mauritania is not Senegal.
Today, I know the players much better. Those who play in the local championship, I train them at least fifteen times a month. Those who are expatriates, I don’t know them yet. They arrived last night (the interview was conducted on Tuesday March 19, NLDR). There is one player from South Korea, another from Belarus, one from Norway and three from Australia. It is also planned that we will do a training camp there because around fifty South Sudanese players play there. I could have a lot more expats. Many try to contact us to come. But we have to see them, discover them and above all, we have to give way to the locals.
If we want to get results, we need the most competitive team possible. But above all we have to fight on the ground. There are technical qualities but we don’t yet have what it takes to beat big teams or just by chance. So we have to work. Above all, we have to be warriors on the ground.
What are your objectives for CAN 2025 and the next CHAN?
Before talking about objectives for CAN 2025, we must manage to qualify and win against Sao Tomé. We have no other objectives than to progress over the three years. We have national teams like the U20 team which is very good. We have very young players. We must never forget that South Sudan is a very young country.
I have more ambitions for our team in CHAN (African Nations Championship) than for our CAN or World Cup team. I wouldn’t be surprised if we performed there. Afterwards, you still need a little luck in the draw because the CHAN qualifiers are regional. We must avoid falling on Ethiopia and pass the two preliminary rounds.
At the moment, South Sudan does not have an approved stadium to play in Juba. Is this a disadvantage ?
Obviously it’s a handicap. Fifa came last week… We hope for validation and to be able to play in June against Sudan and Togo at home.
It would be an advantage to be able to play in Juba. It’s a beautiful little stadium with 11,000 seats and it would help us because the South Sudanese are very football-loving.
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