A New Chapter: Tunisia vs. Gambia Preview

January 8th, 2010 | by: Rami | Comments (115)

On Saturday our Carthage Eagles will face the Gambia at El Menzah Stadium in what will be their first outing since the Maputo debacle. Much has changed since that fateful day: We waved goodbye to Humberto Coelho, demanded and were given Faouzi Benzarti, and waited in vain for FTF officials to resign.

Furthermore, many fans’ suspicions were confirmed as an impostor outed himself: The ungrateful Mr. Fahid “I only wanted the World Cup” Ben Khalfallah turned his back on us and his international career is as good as over. I won’t waste too much time on him as I’ve already given him more than he deserves but good riddance since he was a disruptive locker room presence and didn’t do much on the pitch to justify his selfish attitude. Tunisia is better off without him no matter how many assists he has in Ligue 1. And to think that we let him to wear Tarak Dhiab’s number 10!!!

Meanwhile, though most other nations have been playing multiple friendlies to gear up, so far we’ve contented ourselves with two training camps due to a combination of poor planning and limited options. Opinions about the importance of having more than one test prior to our departure vary but the inescapable fact is that we only have one so let’s face it and move on. Two players in particular stressed this point in their own way upon their return to Tunis today: Khaled Korbi and Souheil Berradhia. The former says he’d rather not even play a friendly at all so we can just go and handle business without anyone knowing what to expect while the other is clearly just tired of being asked the question and says its only a big deal if we make it one. Take a listen here.

As for Gambia, you might be surprised to learn that we’ve actually never faced them before in our history (pretty certain of this). The Scorpions are coming off a 1-1 draw against Angola from last week plus they finished behind Algeria and just ahead of Senegal in the second round of CAN/World Cup qualifying last year so by no means are they pushovers despite what some might have you believe. I won’t pretend to know that much about them because I don’t but their youth ranks have had much more success than the senior side (U17 African champs in 2005 and 2009)… And they haven’t been immune to the question of age cheating.

On our side, things seem to have changed quite a bit in Abu Dhabi. Unconfirmed reports (big up to Tunisyrie on Tunisie Foot for the updates) from those who were able to attend the supposedly closed training sessions indicate that the team has been working harder than ever and that practically no player has been spared Benzarti’s wrath. After getting them lean and mean in Sousse and Monastir, this second camp has been dedicated to tactics. Houcine Ragued said that since there were so many new things to learn, the fact that there was no friendly and more practice might turn out to be beneficial but we’ll know more about that tomorrow.

In typical Benzarti fashion, lots of work was done on free kicks and you can be pretty sure that we’ve devised a number of clever ways to get people open headers/volleys on set pieces. It’s one of his trademarks. There’s also been a lot of insistence on trying your luck from distance and Ahmed Akaichi looks like a viable substitute as he can provide those kind of finishes. In terms of our formations we seem to be going for a 4-4-2 as our primary one with (wait for it) only one defensive midfielder and a second lineup (4-5-1) with two. Training sessions and the scrimmages point to the ideal starting lineup being as such:

——————————-Balbouli——————————-

Berradhia—————Souissi———Jemal——————-Mikari

———————————Ragued——————————-

———Msekni—————————————-Ben Saada——-

——————————–Darragi—————————–

————————Chermiti———Jemaa————————

Karim Haggui seems to have lost his right to captain to the side even when he’s off his form and after years of Lemerre and false promises from Coelho seeing as many as five players with attacking traits (seven if you count Mikari and Berradhia, and eight if you count Jemal with them) is almost a shock to the system. A good one at that. It might look risky but everyone is expected to defend in this team and the high press should work if the players are as fit as we’re told and are ready to wet the jersey. If things go as planned expect a lot of movement (if you’re static the coach will rip you a new one) and lots of variations in the point of attack with an emphasis on each wing in order to stretch the field and give Darragi space to operate. If we opt for the second formation (4-5-1), Jemaa would likely be the one to come off and Korbi, Nafkha (who has shed a few pounds thanks to the first training camp), or Mrabet will play next to Ragued. Dare I say that I feel good about this?

No matter how much changes one thing that doesn’t seems to be our tendency to pick up injuries at the most inopportune moments. We already lost Mouihbi, Dhaouadi has only recovered recently from his muscle issue in his leg (they never did specify which muscle actually, or I never caught it) and might have been in Ben Saada’s place if he had been healthy. Right now it looks like he’ll be a super sub at best. We’ll see though, there’s been little info on his progress.

More worrying is Youssef Msekni’s situation as he sat out the last three days of practice with an ankle knock. An MRI was to be done yesterday but strangely Mosaique reported that his condition improved to the extent that the medical staff no longer thought one was needed. Seems strange not to do one just to make sure… Him going out is not a good look considering we don’t have a real backup, Chady Hammami was being used in his place which seems an odd decision considering he’s more of a defensive midfielder so we’ll see what happens with this.

So that’s about all we know right now. Tomorrow the picture will get much less blurry. Since the match is being played at Menzah stadium you’d hope that there’d be a decent turnout to give our players a proper sending off before the flight to Angola but since our infallible FTF only started selling tickets today and have not promoted the game at all that might be wishful thinking. Then again everyone who cares knows about the match so hopefully they take it upon themselves to go and watch us flip the page on the overly conservative eras of Lemerre and Coelho once and for all. Game kicks off at 3:00 pm Tunis time. I’ll post streaming links in the comments when they are available.

Below is our official squad list with player numbers courtesy of Daryl (rest of squads here):

1 Adel Nefzi (Club Africain)
2 Khaled Souissi (Club Africain)
3 Karim Haggui (Hannover 96)
4 Radhouène Felhi (1860 Munich)
5 Ammar Jemal (Étoile Sahel)
6 Hocine Ragued (Slavia Prague)
7 Chaouki Ben Saada (Nice)
8 Khaled Korbi (Espérance ST)
9 Amine Chermiti (Al-Ittihad)
10 Oussama Darragi (Espérance ST)
11 Souheïl Ben Radhia (Étoile Sahel)
12 Khalil Chemmam (Espérance ST)
13 Chadi Hammami (CS Sfaxien)
14 Haytham Mrabet (CS Sfaxien)
15 Zouheir Dhaouadi (Club Africain)
16 Aymen Mathlouthi (Étoile du Sahel)
17 Issam Jemâa (Lens)
18 Yassin Mikari (Sochaux)
19 Youssef Msakni (Espérance ST)
20 Mohamed Ali Nafkha (Étoile Sahel)
21 Bilel Ifa (Club Africain)
22 Farouk Ben Mustapha (CA Bizertin)
23 Ahmed Akaichi (Étoile Sahel)
Coach: Faouzi Benzarti

In Other News

Aymen Abdennour is getting closer to Werder Bremen. He was finally allowed to join them in the UAE by Etoile (they had previously refused as they wanted an offer) but he missed his flight (boo) so he’ll be getting there a few days later than planned. Hope he can make this transfer, I think it’ll happen.