Togo tactician Didier Six has
identified Saturday's Afcon 2013
Group D encounter with Algeria as
a must-win game. The Hawks go
head to head with the north
Africans at Rustenburg's Royal Bafokeng Stadium, knowing that
another defeat will automatically
end any lingering hopes of
reaching the quarter-final stage. Both sides will be bidding to
bounce back from late
disappointments in opening
matches of the tournament. Algeria were sunk by a late
Tunisia winner in the same
stadium on Tuesday and now face
an uphill battle to reach the last
eight while it was a similar story
for Togo, who lost 2-1 to Cote d'Ivoire with another late goal
denying them what would have
been a surprise point. The outcome of the match
against the Ivorians left Togo
coach Six seething over his team's
disallowed goal. The Hawks
cancelled out Yaya Toure's
opener when Jonathan Ayite struck in first-half stoppage time,
and had the ball in the back of
the net off a corner after the
break. But that effort was ruled out by
Cameroon referee Alioum Neant,
apparently because the corner
had been taken too quickly.
Arsenal's Gervinho then
compounded Togo's plight with the winner two minutes from
time. "There were too many
refereeing mistakes. It's not an
excuse, but there were too many
abnormal decisions," Six told
reporters. "We must now
regroup quickly and get ready for our must win contest against
Algeria. We must win because that
is the only way we can reach the
last eight of the tournament." Cote d'Ivoire and Tunisia meet in
the earlier game in this group and
a draw in this battle would open
things up a bit for the two sides,
but if the game fails to produce a
winner, the hopes of both (Algeria and Togo) will be hanging by a
thread. Algeria head coach Vahid
Halilhodzic is optimistic that they
will prevail over Togo. "The match
against Togo will determine our
future in this competition. If we
get to the quarter-finals you never know what can happen,
but we have to get there first
and it starts on Saturday against
Togo."
"I have followed the Togo team,
they made a super match against Ivory Coast and perhaps they
didn't deserve to lose," he said.
"They created a lot of
opportunities. It is a very strong
team physically also." Valencia midfielder Sofiane
Feghouli and Medhi Lacen of
Getafe are the players to watch
in a largely inexperienced squad
for Algeria while Togo will bank
heavily on Tottenham Hotspurs striker Emmauel Adebayor, who
had a relatively quiet game
against the Elephants in the
opening match.