The long press conference of Egypt coach Carlos Queiroz witnessed a tense atmosphere after beating Senegal 1-0 at Cairo Stadium in the first leg of the decisive round of the FIFA World Cup qualifiers, but it ended with applause.
Egypt needed an early goal from friendly fire to narrowly win a repeat of the African Nations Cup final in Cameroon when Senegal beat Senegal on penalties last February.
The coach of the Egyptian national team expressed his dissatisfaction with a question about the poor performance of Egypt, despite the result.
He responded to the journalist denouncing, "Are you sure that you watched the match? I will not answer this question."
"I don't see a reason for some journalists to be sad about Egypt's victory over a team that won the African Nations Cup a few days ago," Queiroz added.
And he wanted to leave the conference before returning to complete it with an attempt to soften the atmosphere at the end.
frankness
"I'm here to be frank and I'm not afraid of anything. It's normal that the performance is divided between defense and attack against a big team."
The veteran Portuguese coach reviewed the strength of his biography, and said, "I played more than 250 international matches in my coaching career and helped 4 teams qualify for the World Cup, and my ranking among the top 10 coaches in the world in terms of results. I learned some things, including that technical decisions belong to the coach alone."
He added, "Some people are not professional in journalism. My job is to make decisions and win matches, and your job is to criticize my work. We are not in a training session and I do not discuss my decisions with journalists. I'm like a singer. You may like what I sing or not."
In the end Queiroz asked to put a question to the journalists.
He joked, "Who is satisfied with Egypt's performance today raises his hand?"
Journalists raised their hands and applauded him at the conclusion of the conference, which lasted about 40 minutes.
Dakar will host the return leg between Senegal and Egypt next Tuesday, and the winner of the total result of the two-legged matches qualifies for the finals scheduled in Qatar, starting on November 21.