AFCON 2025: coach Patrick Armand Pognon’s stern warning to Gernot Rohr
A few weeks before the AFCON, Beninese coach Patrick Armand Pognon called on the Guépards’ coach Gernot Rohr over the team’s management after a worrying friendly defeat.
SUMMARY
The friendly played by the Guépards on Tuesday, November 18, 2025, presented as a match meant to test new profiles, ended in a heavy 3-0 defeat. A performance that rather confirmed the limits already observed within the Beninese squad.
For Patrick Armand Pognon, in a statement released on November 18, 2025, Gernot Rohr systematically sticks to the same core of players, who struggle to hold up physically and tactically beyond 75 minutes. The substitutes capable of changing the game only come on at the end of matches, and inexplicably return to the bench for the next game. This management, he believes, shows a lack of openness and vision as the AFCON rapidly approaches.
The comparison with Ivory Coast, a warning sign?
In his statement, coach Pognon draws a parallel with Émerse Faé’s Ivory Coast, which he cites as a model of preparation. Ten matches, no defeats, zero goals conceded, 25 goals scored with 16 different scorers. For him, these are numbers that reflect a strategy based on rotation, experimentation and giving responsibility to the whole squad.
“In ten matches, Émerse Faé’s Ivory Coast didn’t lose a single game, didn’t concede any goals, scored 25 goals with 16 different scorers. He played almost every player he selected. Today, he doesn’t depend on any one player in particular, he has seen all his players in action and goes to the AFCON in optimal conditions”, recalled Patrick Armand Pogon.
Conversely, he says, Benin remains trapped in a rigid pattern. Poor tactical decisions have already cost crucial points during the World Cup qualifiers, with comebacks against them and late coaching moves. By his account, the squad cannot go into the AFCON in such conditions. ” On several occasions, the team was caught up to or overtaken on the scoreboard because of unsuitable coaching”, he laments.
Patrick Armand Pognon warns that if nothing changes, the Guépards risk three defeats, several goals conceded and an early return home. He calls on the coach to review his method, value his entire squad and “stop justifying the unjustifiable”.
“We beg Gernot Rohr to question himself, to stop justifying the unjustifiable and to make full use of his entire squad. Otherwise, it will be three defeats, many goals conceded and an early return home that await the Guépards at the next AFCON”, he said.
The coach calls on all actors in Beninese football to avoid a continental humiliation and to allow the national team to approach the competition with real ambitions.
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