Ibenge suit you more as that’s what a Congolese crowd typically wants?
As you say, that’s what they want. They probably clap the skills more than good placement. When you give them players like Bolasie, Mubele with pace and Mabwati attacking defenders, they love that, they are on their feet all the time. They are loving the excitement, and the fact we have the excitement now and we are getting the right results is the best combination.
You have noted the excitement and surprise package in this team. Tell us a little bit about the players that the casual African football fan won’t know much about.
You have already named one – Mubele. He is very quick and has done very well in the African Champions League this year, scored a lot of goals. The ones they will know is obviously Bolasie, who is very tricky, and will probably be marked by maybe two people each time because of what he is doing in the English Premier League. And then you have Mabwati on the wing, who does a lot of tricks as well and is very direct and quick. The biggest surprise is probably [Jeremy] Bokila up front, who plays in Russia and scored 3 goals in the qualification. He’s done very well.
What do you make of being drawn against Cape Verde, Tunisia and Zambia – you must be confident?
Without disrespecting the others team, we are quite happy with that group. We look at it and it could have been a lot worse. There’s a group of death and we definitely not in that! I’m quite confident with this. We are looking to go one place further than last time., so at least to get to the knockouts and from there you never know what happens. At the moment, we are very happy with the group, definitely.
By Salim Masoud Said (@salimosaid)