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Fresh From the Eagles Nest

September 11th, 2008 | By: Rami | 21 Comments »

It’s been almost a week since our last match and my heart rate is finally returning to normal. We’re essentially through to the next round now and that can’t be said about some teams you thought would make it for sure. Latest news on World Cup business is that the draw for the next round of qualifiers will be held on the 21st of November in Johannesburg.

No word on whether we will be top seeds or not since FIFA and CAF haven’t yet agreed on what indicators they will use to define our position. It all depends whether they rely on recent African Cup performances or recent World Cup qualifications. The latter definitely favors us more since we’ve qualified three times in a row and hold the record alongside Cameroon for most World Cup appearances by an African team.

I don’t know where the ever confusing FIFA rankings would come into this but they might have some bearing as well. Basically we know that we don’t know and will know something worth knowing sometime soon. Got it? So it’s five groups with the top teams in each securing their African Cup and World Cup places and the 2nd and 3rd placers booking their ticket to Angola only.

Slovakia Friendly

The Tunisian fan always complains that our NT never manages to book appealing friendlies. When we faced off against Namibia and Zambia (twice) before Ghana 2008 barely anyone showed up. At the time I blamed it on some kind of Lemerre boycott. People were fed up and rightfully so. When we followed this up by using two 2nd division sides to further our preparations for such an important continental showcase, you’d be forgiven to think it was a joke.

Well, for all it’s faults, it seems that the FTF has learned it’s lesson since then. We played Cote d’Ivoire, Angola, and managed to set up not one but TWO friendlies against France. Gasp, they’re planning ahead! What a novel idea… Actually it might be giving our federation too much credit to say that THEY are the ones planning ahead. They’re just answering their phones (cue applause). Now after France, Slovakia has come knocking/ringing asking to play us in Tunis on the 19th of November. The paperwork isn’t done but things should be finalized soon.

The only unfortunate aspect of these friendlies is that while the FTF is kind of getting its act together, the fans of the national team are lagging behind. Attendance at the Angola match was pathetic, especially if you consider that it was the beginning of the road for a new coach. If people weren’t enthusiastic, you would expect that at least sheer curiosity would bring them out of their houses and into the stadium. There was no Rades excuse this time either, Stade El Menzah is a very manageable distance if you live in Tunis or the surrounding areas. Can you believe that the money generated by ticket sales didn’t even cover the price of printing the tickets themselves! The situation is dire. Really, it’s shameful. Tunisians show up en masse to support their respective club teams but can’t come and support the group of Internationals that represent an entire nation on the world stage?

It’s bizarre and it needs to change quickly. We have a promising young group with vast potential but we cannot expect them to give their all when they show up to matches and see nothing but empty seats speckled with a few families that had nothing better to do that evening. We need the hardcore fans to come back. Those ultras who sing and scream at the top of their lungs nonstop. The guys who make the stadium feel like it’s going to explode. Not only are they necessary to spur on a team, but this contingent of fans play a part in intimidating the opponent and making Tunisia a tough place to play. You can’t let other teams show up and think it’s going to be a cakewalk. It’s time to take things seriously and the FTF has to do it’s part in reaching out and filling up the stadiums for NT matches. This apathy has gone on too long. Besides, nobody likes fair weather fans!

Do you have solutions/suggestions? Or do you think this issue will just solve itself when we start playing better? I’d love to hear your opinion on this because its getting serious!

In any case, anyone who frowns when they hear we booked Slovakia simply doesn’t know football. They’re a solid bunch with quite a few players in respectable European clubs (Martin Skrtel from Liverpool being by far the most high profile).

Coelho Meets with LP1 Coaches

Here’s yet another great initiative by the NT manager. Today he held a meeting with all the domestic league coaches in Tunis to make sure that there is harmony between club and country and that everyone was on the same page. The only people that didn’t show up were Ghazi Ghrairi (with CSS in Egypt preparing for their match against Harass al Hudood) and Mohamed Kouki from Kasserine (no reason provided). Nevermind that the meeting started right on time with only two coaches present at the start and the rest trickling in when they realized Humberto doesn’t play around! Time is money people…

Other Tidbits

- Tunisia vs. Seychelles might take place a day early (October 10th) so that we have four days to prepare for our match against France instead of just three. It’s funny to be moving an official qualifier due to a friendly but we really do want to make an impression in Paris. BTW, if Burkina loses to Burundi 1-0 and we win by a three goal margin or more against Seychelles on the final day then we finish first in the group.

- It’s the U17 team’s turn to travel to Ouaga for a crucial fixture. After the goalless tie in our country, we now travel to the 4th of August Stadium in Burkina to try to assure continued progress in African Cup qualifiers on Sept. 13th. Let’s go Eaglets!

- General Assembly of FTF body will take place on October 11th (if the Seychelles match is in fact brought forward a day). Not sure if they’re electing a new president or not. One of the expected announcements is changing the shortest professional contract in Tunis from 6 months to 3 months. Bad news for some players, good news for clubs that don’t want to waste money on guys that aren’t worth it.

Tags: CAF World Cup Qualifying, Carthage Eagles, Federation Tunisienne de Football, FTF, Group H, Humberto Coelho, Slovakia Nationa Team

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Comments

By Tamim | September 11th, 2008 at 10:06 am

i never heard that national teams had ultras!!!

we have the same problem here, but because ahly fans do not want el hadary and think that hassan shehata is teasing them so they boycott NT matches:S. however, wait till we are seeded with you or algeria or morocco and the stdaiums will be packed

By Rachid | September 11th, 2008 at 11:23 am

Rami, I’m still a bit confused. If we finish on top of the group (with Seychelles counted), then do we qualify automatically as #1 and BF as #2? Why are things so damn confusing in Africa? How about the grouping of the 20 qualifying teams, how come they don’t have the criteria well defined yet for the seeds? I find it very strange at this stage of the game!
Tamim, Ahly fans are truly a bunch of fanatics! I still see them not getting over their loss to Etoile last year! Still blaming the Moroccan referee!!! Hadary should be free to do whatever he pleases, they’re supposed to be professionals after all. I hope Zamalek wins this weekend so they get to feel a little better after that devastating loss to ASEC two weeks ago. Good luck.

Posted from United States

By Rami | September 11th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

Tamim, you’re right man they’re not exactly ultras! Clearly you get my point though. Its depressing to see a national team game with no fans. Even the players lose motivation when they see that. What other goalkeeper do you have that could even compare to Al Hadary though? No matter how ungraceful the exit was, Al Ahly fans must recognize this. Tunisian fans obviously show up for the big occasions (game against Morocco to qualify for World Cup being the latest example) but look at England, their fans travel far and wide to watch them play anyone from Andorra to the Faroe Islands! And even if its at home against a so called “small” team the fans show up and cheer on their boys! We could learn a thing or two from them.

Rachid, we go number one if we make up the goal difference with Burkina and they lose against Burundi. So for example, we win 3-0 and they lose 1-0. That puts us in first place. Things got really complicated with these qualifiers because Eritrea dropped out and there’s a group with only three teams. CAF isn’t know for making things simple either. As for the seeding, god knows. I’ll clue everyone in as soon as that news breaks. I’m not overly concerned with seeding to be honest as I know that qualifying is going to be difficult no matter what.

Posted from United States

By Achraf | September 11th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

I like the idea for Coelho to meet with all the owners in the tunisian league. Its good to talk to other owners and get some ideas from them about friendlies, players, etc. The serbia game will be a good challenge for us as well as the france friendly. I love having many friendlies especially when we are building and bringing a new system to use. I was very upset about the attendence in the Angola game. I thought there would be many people there since it was in august and people from other countries are still in tunis on vacation. If I was in Tunis I would be there for every game. The tickets are not even that expensive.

Posted from United States

By Tahar | September 12th, 2008 at 12:04 am

I guess it all comes down to arrogance. Tunisians are known to be full of themselves, so why would someone want to go watch Tunisia face Burkina Faso. That country hasnt been in the african spotlight for ages. Were the 2004 champions.
Thinking back to this summer when I was going to the BF x Tunisia game at Rades…. none of my friends wanted to come along. They couldnt believe I was going. Currently our fans just have a pessimistic outlook on the federation and only speak when things go wrong to say “i told you so”. To their credit, until now, most of he time theyre right… were getting poor results and not playing attractive football. Unfortunately it takes an entire nation to get the spirits high and force the players to perform. Im just babling now, but it makes me so envious to see the crowd at the algeria x senegal game… the fans with their shirts off and flags and flames going around. Result = 3-2 victory, Rafik Saifi has the confidence to do a rainbow and get an assist, the team is stringing more than 5 passes on several ocaisions (watch those highlights if you havent yet)

Posted from United States

By Tahar | September 12th, 2008 at 12:06 am

btw i was being sarcastic when i said
“why would someone want to go watch Tunisia face Burkina Faso. That country hasnt been in the african spotlight for ages. Were the 2004 champions”
I fully respect BF, and Tunisias 2004 victories but weve got to stop using it in our defense

Posted from United States

By thamer | September 12th, 2008 at 1:06 am

i dont think the game against seychelles matters at all. from what i understand, we have to subtract the points and goal difference from the games against seychelles from both tunisia and burkina faso and then you get the real table. the only thing that can help us next matchday is if burundi beats burkina faso. the points and goals we score against seychelles wont count because they will have to be erased anyway. correct me if im wrong.

Posted from United States

By Rami | September 12th, 2008 at 6:23 am

Tahar, you’ve hit the nail on the head. I was thinking the exact same thing when I saw those Algeria highlights last week. Stadium was packed, crowd was hyped, and the Algerians didn’t give up even after going a goal down at home. I think the fact that Algeria has been missing out on continental and global competitions for a while has to do with it. Their fans haven’t been spoiled like ours. We have come to expect qualification and this arrogance as you correctly termed it is very dangerous because no one is immune to upsets. The reality check came and went but we’re still not learning our lesson. Hopefully in the next round we see something different…

Thamer, I can assure you that the game against Seychelles does in fact matter. But I understand the confusion because its complicated as hell. Basically our points and goals against Seychelles only get erased if we finish second. They will erase them to compare us to the other second placers (who will also have their points and goals they earned against last place team taken away) to determine the best 8 out of the 12. However, if we win by a 3 goal margin and Burkina loses to Burundi 1-0 then we overtake Burkina and all our points count. The odds of that happening are not very high but we still owe it to ourselves to give it a shot. If someone had told me Tunisia would lose to Burkina at home at the beginning of qualifiers I would have laughed at them. Anything is possible in football so we need to go ahead and battle it out to the very end.

Posted from United States

By Abdullah | September 12th, 2008 at 6:44 am

Hey, everyone this has motivated me to support l’equippe nationale more than ever, i was already kinda planning to go see them play in france but now im determened to go and maybe bring some friends (or maybe even my little sister) with me

Hope the tunisians in france and all over the world will do the same.

Unfortunatly im not able to travel all the way to tunisia to see the seychelles match but i really hope more ppl will show up to support their team.

And frankly, i dont understand at all why people who live in tunisia dont go to support them EVEN IF THE LOSE!!

Posted from Netherlands

By Abdullah | September 12th, 2008 at 7:07 am

To get everyone in the spirit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wmp1KDFRXk&feature=related

Posted from Netherlands

By thamer | September 12th, 2008 at 11:19 am

i get it now rami, thanks for clarifying. i would imagine we can beat seychelles 3-0 at home given the right preparation and fan support, and im not so pessimistic about burundi beating burkina faso at home. remember, we only beat them by one goal at their place, and one of the goals was bullshit and they had ten men for most of the match. so we’ll see what happens.

Posted from United States

By Skander | September 12th, 2008 at 11:48 am

Hey Rami

Thx again for the great blogging. I agree totally with your “The situation is dire. Really, it’s shameful. Tunisians show up en masse to support their respective club teams but can’t come and support the group of Internationals that represent an entire nation on the world stage?
” rant. Could you translate it and publish it in more widespread french TN NT forum or website? For all it’s quality, your blog is in english, so its tunisian readership is inherently limited. I would do it myself, but I don’t follow any of the french/derja forums and blogs to know where to post.
Cheers
Skander

Posted from Japan

By Rami | September 13th, 2008 at 2:12 pm

Abdullah, thanks for your enthusiasm and thanks a lot for that video. I remember growing up we used to do the raising of the flag every morning in Tunisian public school. It never really had that much significance to me as most of the kids were joking or changing the words to be funnier. Now the older I get the more that anthem means something to me. The words are powerful and I think it should be any players dream to hear it played before he starts a match in a Carthage Eagles jersey. It gave me goose bumps.

Thamer, you’re right, Burundi was a tough place to play. Hopefully the artificial turf bothers the Burkinabes as much as it bother us. It took a Jaidi header for us to nab the win there and it was the game that most people listened to on the radio. Stressful times!

Skander, you make an excellent point. The language barrier is definitely the main issue I’ve been having to cope with here but I’m fortunate in that I’ve found a nice anglophone Tunisian readership who are all so helpful and encouraging. My best idea is to start a subject in the Tunisie foot forum. My written french is really not as good as my spoken but I’ll give it a shot. I’m sure there’s some facebook groups where I can bring up this issue as well. Great idea Skander. I’ll be sure to let you know how I end up following up with this. Thanks a bunch.

Posted from United States

By Rachid | September 13th, 2008 at 5:24 pm

Sorry, wrong place for this, but cannot resist:

L’Etoile got the job done today against Merrikh of Sudan! Some inexperience was somewhat evident, but overall the team looks good. Good luck next week against the same opponent!

http://www.zshare.net/video/187234518ec4ae30/

http://www.zshare.net/video/18724372702b00cb/

By Houssem | September 14th, 2008 at 4:43 pm

Hey everybody, sa77a chribetkom

I just read on the website of Assahafa that Yassine Chikhaoui isn’t even answering the EN-staff’s calls; they wanted to know what was going on in Zurich and the reasons why the move to Le Havre failed. I fear we have already lost a quality player whose career is being jeopardized at a very early stage.

Posted from Germany

By Abdullah | September 15th, 2008 at 2:20 am

Nah, they just have to give him some time and dont rush him, he will get called up as soon as he is recovered and starts playing again for Zurich.

When its about the national team people tend to get a bit hasty and unpatient with players recovering and such, as you’ve all heard they wanted mikari to fly to tunisia and double-check him there to see if he’s really THAT injured.

And honestly i’ve heard so many rumors about chikhaoui moving to ajax, bayern, fenerbache, olympique lyon, lens, udinese, juventus and even hertha berlin.
So pardon me if i didnt believe the rumour about le havre, and as for what you read on assahafa i think they are just overreacting because they also are afraid he might not show up again.

Als chikhaoui said he wanted to go to bayern a while back so i think he will opt for a bundesliga team, hahah how great would it be to see chermiti and chikhaoui both at hertha .

Posted from Netherlands

By Rami | September 15th, 2008 at 9:50 am

Rachid, not a problem posting that stuff. I watched the match and was rooting for you guys. Nice to see Felhi coming up big. At such a young age and he’s already captain, pretty cool stuff. There were some few nervous moments at the end but the 3 points are all that matter. Since you put down some highlights I’ll put down the nastiest goal of the weekend. Yesterday CA made easy work of Interclub of Angola beating them 3-0. Coulda easily been 6-0 or more. Here’s the final goal of the match: http://www.zshare.net/video/1878574061ab5d7b/

Houssem, I hope that article is pure fiction. I’d be very surprised if Chikhaoui is ignoring the NT staff. I don’t see why he would do that even… I read his return has bee delayed three weeks with no explanation as to why: http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sportalplus.com%2Fsportch%2Fgenerated%2Farticle%2Ftnt_fussball%2F2008%2F09%2F11%2F5699600000.html&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=de&tl=en

Abdullah, Chikhaoui + Chermiti is deadly and any team would benefit from a combo like that. I just want to see them both back on the field. Rabbi yeshfihom.

Posted from United States

By Achraf | September 15th, 2008 at 2:04 pm

wow! what a goal that was from sellami. I actually do know him. A friend of mine is related to him. He is a good player but his atitude is killing him. He could have been on the national team but he just can’t fix his attitude.

Posted from United States

By Houssem | September 15th, 2008 at 5:44 pm

that was a quality goal by Sellami ! Too bad CSS couldn’t bring at least a point from Alexandria. Haras Al Hodood are starting to look really good, one of our teams might end up being “sacrified” to ensure Tunisia a place in the Confed. Cup final. I also wanted to appeal to my fellow readers to spread the word and get fans from other tunisian clubs to write about their teams on the Offside, it can’t be that hard to find people up to it.
Greetings

Posted from Germany

By skander | September 16th, 2008 at 10:54 am

Anything new about chikhaoui ??. Where the hell is he?!

Posted from Sweden

By Rami | September 16th, 2008 at 11:20 am

If you believe the article I linked in my previous comment, it’s three more weeks till he comes back… Been wanting to write about him for a bit, maybe I’ll get to that tonight if I have time. Not that I have any inside info or anything…

Posted from United States

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