Haggui Ruled Out of June Qualifiers; Baghouli Faces 6 Month Doping Ban

Disconcerting news out of Germany today as Karim Haggui made a call to mosaique FM saying that he just underwent what he termed a minor surgery on his abdomen. Apparently the injury itself was never serious but it kept coming and going and anyone who ever played a sport semi seriously knows how annoying that can be. So Leverkusen decided that this was as good a time as any to finally address the nagging issue and give their defensive ace some rest towards the end of this season.

They’re still in the hunt to secure an automatic UEFA cup spot with their champions league aspirations essentially done and dusted. The recuperation time is about a month and once that has elapsed he’ll be able to start coming back slowly. On the NT level, this means Haggui will miss all of our preliminary qualifiers. Thankfully for us, we have very capable defenders. Perhaps this is Seif Ghezal’s time to finally get a real chance at partnering with Felhi like they did so well at Etoile. I think that’s the best duo while Haggui is unavailable. What about you?

Meanwhile, it’s rumored Manchester City, Borussia Dortmund, and Besiktas (amongst others) are all after the Tunisian international. He’s ruled out Besiktas as his dream is to eventually move to England.

Hamza Baghouli of CAB Faces 6 Month Doping Ban

I absolutely hate it when I hear about doping in any sport. It’s a real downer. What’s worse is that this affects one of the revelations of this year’s season, 20 year old Hamza Baghouli of CAB. He was tested before last weeks match against Esperance and it came back positive. No word on the kind of steroid but the minimum ban is 6 months on the sideline and a hefty fine to boot.

This kid was probably going to be transferred to one of the bigger clubs in Tunis but now that is in jeopardy. This story is developing so I just hope that this evidence is either false or somehow overturned. Not all doping tests are conclusive but maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part. It could very well be a supplement that had stuff in it he didn’t know about…The kid definitely has talent and could still have a promising career ahead of him. More to come…

Update

Turns out Hamza made the mistake of taking a supplement to speed up the recovery on an ankle injury without consulting with the team doctor first. CAB will not be contesting the league decision. Hamza will be eligible to play come November. It remains to be seen whether this affects his transfer status.