Aljazeera Adds It’s Two Cents to the Chikhaoui Debate

I had been wondering why nobody was picking up this story in the Arab world besides on forums and blogs and sure enough Aljazeera has given it some attention. They also link it to the Aboutrika “Sympathize with Ghaza” goal celebration. Doesn’t say anything we don’t know already but it’s good to see they know it’s going on. One of the guys on Hannibal TV’s Belmakshouf also touched on this and implored the FTF to speak up on Chikhaoui’s behalf as he is essentially an ambassador for our country and we don’t want to see his words twisted and his image tarnished for no reason. If you don’t speak arabic this video will just seem like looped highlights of Chikhaoui’s goal in the African Cup against Cameroon and then a bunch of Aboutrika goals, so I guess it’s still worth a viewing! By the way, this is somewhat unrelated but I just realized you can watch all of Hannibal TV’s sport shows online at their website. Pretty awesome if you ask me. More material is always welcome.

In Other News

Tunisia to Play France in November

Mosaique FM reports that Tunisia will play France (yes France) in November in Paris. No you’re not dreaming. I know we all have reasons to be skeptical after the cancelled Morocco and Egypt friendlies right before the African Cup but I don’t think the French will be sending last minute apologies (at least I hope not). If anything this is an indication that the FTF has learned their lesson about leaving things to the last minute and that they’re looking ahead. I didn’t link an article or anything because it was just mentioned in a couple of Sport Express updates. I repeat, all indications are this is official. Tunisia France brings back memories. Rades was just built, France were just crowned World Champions, and Ali Zitouni got us the tie ballgame:

About that Cote d’Ivoire game

Turns out that we’ll be fielding a team with only local talent from the Tunisian league. It’s to prepare for the 2009 African Domestic Cup. It’s a nice concept but I hope it doesn’t sidetrack our 2010 African Cup and World Cup preparations. CAF is going to have it’s hands full trying to figure out how to organize this event successfully. So basically we won’t be seeing Chikhaoui, Haggui, Mnari, Ben Saada and company against Ivory coast in March. It remains to be seen whether real stars of the Tunisian league (Chermiti, Dhaouadi, Mouihbi, Zaiem etc) will actually make it onto the team because they’re in consideration for the full national team. It’s a complex situation and honestly I don’t know enough about it to comment. As things get clearer, I’ll try to fill everyone in.

No worries, it looks worse than it is

Check out this cut Amine Chermiti got 15 minutes into the game against Hammam Lif. Apparently he got kicked in the eye. Ouch! It took 12 stitches to close the wound and he’s missing todays training but the good news is that he’s still expected to play this weekend. Click on the thumbnail to see the full size picture. It adds to his warrior identity doesn’t it?

Update

Seems like Mosaique FM are intent on turning me into a liar. Now the word is that Amine might very well miss this weekends game so as not to risk aggravating that nasty cut on his eyelid. Let’s hope he heals as fast as he runs.