World Cup 2022: El Hadji Diouf Backs Senegal to Beat England on Penalties

• Senegal made it through to the knockout stages of the Qatar 2022 World Cup and will face England
• El Hadji Diouf admits Senegal are not favourites but also not pushover against the English national team
• Diouf is confident they will put up a fight while also adding that Senegal will win if it gets to a penalty shootout

Senegal put behind the absence of their captain Sadio Mane, and the disappointment of the opening game loss to Netherlands to win their final two games and qualify for the knockout stages.

The Tarenga Lions defeated hosts Qatar 3-1 and battled to a hard fought 2-1 win over South American opponent Ecuador in their final game to ensure their qualification for the first time since 2002.

They will now face England who finished top of group A. Former player and assistant manager El Hadji Diouf is backing his country to get a result against England especially on penalties.

Spectre of 2002 hangs over injury-hit France at World Cup

Football

Diouf and head coach Aliou Cisse were part of the Senegalese team that reached the quarter finals in 2002 and will hope for a similar outcome, if not better this time.

Statement by El Hadji Diouf

Diouf made these statements while speaking to reporters on Friday as quoted by GWFN.

''We don’t have anything to show the world. We have Édouard Mendy and Kalidou Koulibaly in our squad. We have a lot of good players in England. Some play in the Championship but they are really Premier League players, like Ismaïla Sarr. It’s for them to show how good they are.''

Diouf further made a bold claim that if the match goes to penalties, he is confident of a Senegal win as they always win on penalties.

South Korea's World Cup squad 2022: Who's in and who's out?

Football

''We are always going to win on penalties. If we get to penalties we’re going to win it. Easy. I know the goalkeeper we’ve got and I know we can stop some of their penalties.''

Senegal sanctioned by FIFA

Sports Brief earlier reported that Senegal will face a FIFA sanction for press conference irregularities ahead of their game against Ecuador.

Senegal had only coach Aliou Cisse in attendance at the pre-match conference as against having one player join the manager.

FIFA have now issued a fine of 10,000 Swiss Francs to Senegal for the incident and will hope to avoid such in the subsequent press conferences.