Details Surrounding Tijani Belaid’s New Year’s Day Car Crash Surface

There have been lots of questions surrounding Tijani Belaid’s accident since news circulated that he was on his way back from the coastal town of Sousse on New Year’s day when he was involved in a crash that left three people dead and four more in critical condition. Because it was after what was a long night of partying for many, the popular assumption was that this was caused by drunk driving. I have to say I feared the worst myself. A lot of people posting comments on Mosaique FM’s website seemed to be convinced our international was surely the cause of the accident as some claimed to have seen him with friends at a club that night… with a bottle of Vanilla Vodka at his table (yea, they were that precise). None of that can be independently verified but some were quite adamant that they saw the bottle. But was he drinking? Apparently the answer is no. At least thats the picture the Tunisian press is painting (as well as those claiming to be eyewitnesses on Mosaique FM’s website).

According to Le Temps and Le Quotidien, this is the horrible sequence of events: A truck came to an unexpected stop on the highway when the car behind it, a four by four containing a family of six, only realizes at the last second that the truck has stopped moving. In the attempt to miss the immobilized vehicle, the female driver, Besma (may she rest in peace), swerves violently and causes her car to flip multiple times. The car ends up in the middle zone that separates the two sides of the highway. This is when 17 year old Hanene Jaballah, a member of the basketball team ASF Jammel, crawls out of the wreckage with her niece. Panic, disorientation, and a desire to get away from the crash site pushes her onto the road and into opposing traffic where Tijani Belaid, who didn’t have enough time to prevent the collision, ends up hitting both of them. Hanene is dead on the spot and her niece is in critical condition. In the crash that ensued, Tijani’s passenger and friend is killed instantly as well. The final human tally of this cruel sequence on such a day is really sad.

By some bizarre twist of fate, Tijani comes out of the ordeal with nothing but facial lacerations. Across Tunisia, there have been a lot of questions as to whether he will stay in the list and I didn’t want to answer them on the day of the accident as it wasn’t the time for it (not to mention, the answers weren’t yet available) but Le Quotidien reports that in a phone call with Nabil Maaloul, the assistant coach made it clear that Belaid remains in the group and will join as soon as possible. Some will question this decision as he is surely traumatized by what happened but I think that it’s better to at least welcome him back with open arms rather than cast him aside which could quite possibly add to his depression.

He needs a distraction more than ever and what better place for therapy than a soccer pitch that he loves? Plus I think that that the team would really rally around him and offer him just as much support as a family would. Am I alone in this train of though? Does it make sense to you guys? I just think that it would be cruel to take away the CAN from his grasp if the accident wasn’t his fault. He might not go to Ghana but the least we can do is allow him to train with the team and evaluate his psychological state before we make a final decision. What do you think?

In Other News

I was pretty hard on Fahd Ben Khalfallah in my last post. Here are his his reasons for passing up the chance to play in the ACN. Basically his explanation is that it’s complicated with his club, the call up was unexpected and kind of late. He also says that he would never ask for guarantees from a coach given that there were lots of other good players in the team. We’ll wait to find out whether we’re replacing him with anyone. What’s sure is he won’t be playing in Ghana. He says he’d be happy to come back later in his career… even if its to sit on the bench. And funnily enough it’s almost as if he read the last post because he said he’d come back from France on a bicycle if he got called up again! That’s not quite walking but ok Fahd. Time will tell as to whether he deserves a spot in our team.

Regardless, I wish him the best with Angers and hopefully a move to a Ligue 1 club in the close future. As I said before, the majority of Tunisians didn’t even understand how he made it on the list in the first place. The thing is, it’s clear from listening to Fahd that he understands that as well as anyone else. He says he’d rather come after the African Cup little by little to earn his place in the team, instead of going now when people will judge him badly if he doesn’t perform well. If that happened you could be sure that he wouldn’t be called up again. So he doesn’t want to run the risk of ruining his chances forever. We’ll know more when Lemerre has his press conference on Saturday prior to the Zambia game on Sunday. That is if he decides to answer all the questions asked of him, which is never guaranteed.

Update

Speaking of Lemerre, there is a nasty rumor going around on Tunisie-foot.com that five individuals attempted to invade the pitch and attack the coach as the national team was training in Rades. I really really really hope this is not true. The person who posted this claims that he has a friend who was at the the scene of the incident. Details are scarce and there has yet to be any media coverage besides this but if I hear anything I’ll be sure to post. Please let this be fiction. Say what you want about Lemerre’s personnel decisions, tactical choices, and general demeanor but nothing he has done merits this kind of treatment. This is not the way to prepare for an African Cup and it is not a way to treat people! Violence is not the answer! We await further news in the hopes that this is nothing more than a fabrication.