Algeria’s coach, Djamel Belmadi, says they have learned their lessons after failing to secure all three points against Angola in their opening Group D game of the African Cup of Nations on Monday evening.The 2019 winners took a first-half lead through Baghdad Bounedjah but failed to secure maximum points after Agostinho Cristóvão Paciência scored a second-half equalizer for Angola from the penalty spot.##NAJAVA_MECA_7796306##According to Belmadi, they expected to bag maximum points from the game, gave their best, but could not secure more against an Angolan side that stepped up in the second half of the game.“This is not the result we expected. We were expecting to have 3 points. We tried our best and didn’t want to lose the game, so we did what we could to get a necessary point,” he said during an interview with CAF Media.The tactician believes they should have performed better in the second half, particularly in terms of defending, but believes that they have picked up vital lessons ahead of their next game against Burkina Faso on Saturday. He added,“We were supposed to do better in the second half, but we can also talk about the moments we did well. We have identified our weakness as we didn’t defend very well, leading to the penalty, which was a big mistake. We are in a transitional period, so we try for this team to work together, and we have also learned lessons from this game for our remaining matches.”“We made some technical mistakes, but it’s not professional to start a tournament with the mindset of a loser, so we will prepare for the match against Burkina Faso to put things right,” he concluded.His Angolan counterpart, Pedro Gonçalves, was impressed by his team’s response, particularly in the second half after a first stanza where they risked being overrun by the 2019 AFCON winners.“This team started slowly, but we managed to find some spaces and came back into the game in the second half, which the team did better. The work isn’t done. The team showed that mentally they are up there, so we will continue to build on this in our next matches.”Angola will play Mauritania on Saturday.AFCON 2023: Group E kicks off with Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Tunisia, Namibia, Mali, South Africa in actionAFCON 2023- GROUP STAGESaturdayIvory Coast – Guinea B. 2-0 (1-0)/Fofana 4, Krasso 58/SundayNigeria – Equatorial Guinea 1-1 (1-1)/Osimhen 38 – Salvador 36/Egypt – Mozambique 2-2 (1-0)/Mohamed 2, Salah 90+7 pen – Witi 55, Bauque 58/Ghana – Cape Verde 1-2 (0-1)/Djiku 56 – Monteiro 17, Rodrigues 90+2/MondaySenegal 3-0 Gambia (1-0)/Gueye 4, Camara 52, 86/Cameroon 1-1 Guinea (0-1)/Magri 51-Bayo 10/Algeria – Angola 1-1 (1-0)/Boundedjah 18 – Mabululu (p) 68/Tuesday17.00: (1.75) Burkina Faso (3.60) Mauritania (5.70)20.00: (1.40) Tunisia (4.60) Namibia (10.5)23.00: (2.15) Mali (3.25) S.Africa (3.90)Wednesday20.00: (1.30) Morocco (5.80) Tanzania (12.0)23.00: (2.40) Dr Congo (3.20) Zambia (3.40)***odds are subject to change***
