Senegal coach Aliou Cisse has openly admitted that his side failed to match England’s quality in Sunday’s 2022 FIFA World Cup Round of 16 clash.

The Teranga Lions lost 3-0 to bow out of the tournament.

The African champions conceded first-half goals from Jordan Henderson and Harry Kane before Bukayo Saka’s effort killed the contest in the second half.

Speaking after the match, Cisse, who had been unwell before the game, said: “A match lasts 90 minutes and in the first half we played pretty well and created chances but unfortunately we didn’t score.

“We were playing a very good England team and we saw that in their challenges, their physical strength. We weren’t as good as we should have been.”

Cisse bemoaned his team’s defensive lapses, adding: “Senegal’s strength before the World Cup was our defensive set-up. The fact we have let in a lot of goals at this tournament is difficult to explain. We are going to have to look at that.

“You pay for any mistake you make at the World Cup because of the calibre of the teams.”

Despite the loss, the gaffer believes African football is getting better and has revealed what is needed to maintain the development.

“It is not easy to become world champions but in Africa infrastructure is improving,” he said. “We need more technical directors, we need to work on refereeing as well. You need all those things in place.

“We’ve made mistakes in the past. You can’t just do it overnight. In all countries in Africa there is a real sports policy in place. We have to keep that up if we want to win these tournaments.”- Soccer24 Zimbabwe