The 2004 champions face Mali in a must-win clash on Saturday, 20 January at Korhogo’s Amadou Gon Coulibaly Stadium following their shock 1-0 defeat to Namibia over the weekend.

Speaking ahead of the crucial encounter on Friday, Kadri assured Tunisians of a better showing, adding that the team was fully focused on the task at hand.

The coach also emphasized that the team had “disconnected” from the outside world in order to fully focus on the match. This was in reference to the ongoing criticism the team had suffered on digital platforms.

“We have disconnected from the outside world and just want to focus on the task at hand.  We know what is at stake and know that anything less than a victory spells our end in the competition. We have identified our mistakes and are working hard to ensure that they do not happen again”, assured the coach.

Touching on the individual brilliance of some of the Malian stars, the coach said while they acknowledge the talented players in Mali, it was important that they rather plan for the team’s style of play and not put too much focus on individual players.

“They have good players who play for good teams but for us to get a result, we need to plan for the entire team and not individual players. Our analysis of them is based on the entire team and not so much on individual stars. We know them but we would rather plan for the entire team instead of individuals” concluded Kadri.

Kick-off at Amadou Gon Coulibaly Stadium on Saturday is at 20h00 GMT.