First of all, Aliou Cissé took some of the heat out of the situation his Senegalese national team found themselves in at the end of the group stage on Monday lunchtime.

"Football isn't war, no one will die in the battle, at least I hope so," said the Teranga Lions coach.

But it is understandable that his compatriots are a bit excited before the game against Ecuador (4 p.m. CET in the FAZ live ticker for the football World Cup and on MagentaTV), which will decide whether this World Cup will be a historic success for Senegal or a big disappointment in history will go down.

A win will see the West Africans through to the round of 16, a draw isn't enough, but Cissé is confident.

With this generation of players, he "has often played this type of game," he says.

These are "high-level" and "high-pressure games" in which his team reliably muster the necessary "concentration and energy".

In the first half of the year, the Senegalese played several very close, very important games only to be celebrated as winners at the end.

At the Africa Cup of Nations, when they won the tournament, beating Egypt on penalties, and in the World Cup play-offs, which they again won on penalties against Egypt.

At least since these successes, the 46-year-old Cissé has been regarded as an outstanding representative of a new generation of African coaches who have spent parts of their lives in Europe and are now building a bridge between the highly developed football from England, Spain, France or Germany and the nation in who has his own family roots.

As a professional he played for Paris Saint-Germain and with Birmingham City in the Premier League.

But this Monday in Doha, Cissé wants to focus on the here and now.

His rasta hairdo covered by a baseball cap makes him appear quite nonchalant, yet his impressive authority fills the conference room where, after a narrow loss to the Netherlands and a win over Qatar, he says: “We have clear hearts and we want this adventure with her Continue the generation of players”, which would mean that Senegal achieves what has only been achieved once before: a place in the knockout stages of a World Cup.

Cissé was then a member of the first golden generation of players around El Hadji Diouf and Papa Bouba Diop.

That was 2002, a year that played a central role in Aliou Cissé's life, not only because of this success.

At the Africa Cup of Nations, Senegal lost the final on penalties to Cameroon, and Cissé missed the decisive attempt.

It was only 20 years later that this football nation was able to overcome this painful experience by winning the first continental tournament for its country, the coach was: Cissé.

The fateful events of September 26, 2002, on the other hand, will not be as easy for him to process.

At that time, according to official information, people died when the Senegalese ship Le Joola sank in 1873, including friends, aunts, uncles, cousins ​​and Cissé's beloved sister.

It was the third deadliest civil shipping disaster after World War II, with more deaths than the Titanic.

Cissé has not spoken publicly about it for 20 years, now he says: "It was a tragedy for me, my family and friends, for the country.

In Ziguinchor everyone knew everyone.

Families were decimated.” Le Joola's voyages were the main link between Cissé's hometown of Ziguinchor in the south of the country and the capital, Dakar.

He himself has ridden countless times, "I loved the Joola, I knew her inside out," he says in a BBC report.

The ship was actually built to carry almost 600 people, so she was hopelessly overloaded and capsized in a storm off Gambia.

2022 is the year in which this man and Senegal come to terms with the tragedies of the past, including the shock of the 2018 World Cup.

At that time, the Senegalese failed more narrowly than any other nation in World Cup history.

With Japan tied on points and goals, the fair play rating was decisive, the team had seen one yellow card too many.

"What a frustration, what a disappointment," says Cissé: "I can accept it if an elimination follows after an opponent was simply better.

But as?

Elimination by such a bizarre detail?

The whole job fell through in fractions of a second.” This time they want to clear things up themselves with a win over Ecuador.