If maintained, the Africa Cup of Nations could well complicate the affairs of Saint-Etienne in Operation Maintain.
And for good reason, many ASSE players are potentially selectable for CAN, starting with offensive leaders Wahbi Khazri and Denis Bouanga. Beyond the two attackers, Saint-Etienne denotes within his workforce Mahdi Camara or Zaydou Youssouf as players likely to defend the colors of their respective countries in Cameroon next January. But at a press conference this Tuesday on the eve of Nantes’ reception at Geoffroy-Guichard, the new Stéphanois coach Pascal Dupraz made a completely unexpected announcement. According to the ex-Prime Video consultant, Camara and Youssouf have told their squads that they favor staying at ASSE rather than playing in the CAN in order to help the club hold on.
Camara and Youssouf favor ASSE over CAN
“There are boys who were selectable and who decided to stay here to get the club out of this situation. Camara has been in discussions with the club for a month, and he told us he preferred to stay. Youssouf also ” delivered Pascal Dupraz to everyone’s surprise. Obviously, this attitude will be welcomed by ASSE supporters while they wait to see how the Gambia and Comoros teams react following this announcement. Pascal Dupraz also took advantage of his presence at a press conference to discuss the maintenance mission in which he is embarked after replacing Claude Puel at the head of Saint-Etienne. “The mission is not complicated but exhilarating. The goal is to make the defense less permeable and our attack more verbose, that’s the job of a coach. If things were frozen, we would be royally pissed off. By relying on the numbers, you have to offer fewer goals. My mission is also to play down the situation. I don’t want to talk about what was wrong. I don’t want to serve my opponents ” said Pascal Dupraz, who won his first game for ASSSE on Sunday afternoon in the Coupe de France against Lyon-Duchère and who now wants to follow up in Ligue 1 against Nantes.