Kamil Zayatte
The story of AFCON qualifying: the captain of the heroic Guinea team speaks about how they did it.
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Hi Kamil, thanks for talking to us. First of all, how did it feel when you found out you qualified for AFCON?
When the make the group for qualifying, everyone said that the favourite from this group was Ghana and Togo, no one believed in Guinea. As well as this, we played all our games away because of the Ebola virus, as we were not allowed to play at home. When people saw that, they said “Guinea don’t have a chance”. But we know our team, we play with heart, and we believe in our chance to play in the Africa Cup of Nations. We took a lot of heart from the first game against Togo (a 2-1 win at “home”), and made us sure that we can qualify.
You injured for the game against Uganda, when you went through, no?
Yes, I ended up playing only one game in qualifying, after injuring my hamstring in the game against Togo. But I’m still injured now, and am trying to get fit for when the Cup of Nations now. I think I will be fit.
After the Ghana game, when you only had one point from three games, were you concerned that you wouldn’t qualify?
No, no, because we believed in our team. It was disappointing to lose against Ghana, but they are a great side,
against Ghana, but they are a great side, and when we drew with them in the following game it really helped us to be close to Togo and Uganda. It really spurred us on to win the next two games, which meant we qualified for the Cup of Nations. It was a very tough group, so we were very happy to qualify.
What was the atmosphere like in the dressing room?
The dressing room is like every dressing room in Africa – we like to dance, we like to keep a positive atmosphere. We know each other, everyone is friend of everyone – we are a national team full of life.
Did you find Ebola bound you as a team?
I think so. It makes us more together. We got our qualification for the people of Guinea. When we started our competition, every country we went to, the people look at us like there is something wrong. Because we are Guinea, Ebola is in Guinea, and they think that we are sick. And we when see that, we said, “okay, we’re going to do this for our people who are affected by Ebola”.
Was it difficult when people looked at you in this way?