Herve Renard

“This is a key tournament for our football”

The Morocco coach was an AFCON winner with Zambia in 2012 and Ivory Coast in 2015

- Mark Gleeson

As a past winner, what is the secret to success at the Africa Cup of Nations?

There is no secret. It’s impossible in football to predict which one you are going to win. Football is too difficult to press one button and to say: “Ah, this one we are going to win.”

Was there anything in particular that you might have done in the way you prepared your teams before the various tournaments that handed you an edge?

No, not really. I have had the same assistant for the last 10 years [fellow Frenchman Patrice Beaumelle], and of course we have picked up some experience along the way. We probably made some mistakes too, but we try to avoid those same mistakes now! But sometimes in football you can follow the same preparations, using the same methods, and it doesn’t work out the same way. That is because circumstances are always different. It could be the character of the players, the dynamic of the squad. It’s too easy to say “we know how to do it right and so we’ll do it and win”. That’s not how football works. We also need to keep some humility.

You seem to have a special relationship with this tournament…

Yes, of course. It will be my seventh tournament. I started in 2008 when I was assistant for the Black Stars with Claude Le Roy and since then I have not missed one. I’ve been very lucky. What I hope this time is that we have good pitches to play on. This is the most important aspect because this was not always the case in the previous tournaments. In terms of the image of Africa, this continent needs to improve because all around the world these days they can watch the tournament. They love to watch it but they need to see something that is very good, not something that is just average.

Do you have a favourite team and tournament from your past?