World

Africa

Tunisia

Injuries Force New Decisions in African Cup List

December 28th, 2007 | By: Rami | 5 Comments »

Promptly after being called up to the provisional 27 man squad both David Jemmali and Ali Zitouni have been injured and will not be fit in time for the African Cup. Since only 23 players will ultimately travel to Ghana the question was do you leave the squad at 25 and then cut two players or replace the two so that there can be more options and competition for places in the team and then cut four as was originally planned. Reports out of Tunis seem to indicate that the answer is neither. Given that there are 10 defenders in the team right now it appears Jemmali’s spot will remain vacant and the technical staff will try to make due with the players at their disposal in that area.

However, when it comes to strikers it’s another story altogether as there are only two true center forwards in the list (Santos and Chermiti) and the latter won’t even be available for 2 crucial group games due to suspension. Mosaique FM reports that a meeting will take place tonight between Lemerre and his technical staff to decide who should be called upon to fill in Zitouni’s place. Perhaps if Zied Jaziri hadn’t gone ballistic when he wasn’t included initially, Lemerre would be calling on the veteran right now. But given his recent interviews and this latest declaration by the French coach it can safely be said that recalling the speedy attacker nicknamed the little fox (or tha3loub in arabic) is not an option.

Nabil Maaloul, the assistant coach of the national team, is quoted as saying that the player in question will probably be Youssef Mouihbi or Zouhaier Dhaouadi from Club Africain or Mehdi Ben Dhifallah from Etoile. Perhaps this is not a coincidence as many Clubiste fans were left scratching their heads when the only player taken from the side was goalkeeper Adel Nefzi. A name which is also surprisingly missing from this discussion is Stade Tunisien striker Amir Akrout who has been on fire in the Ligue 1 since Robertinho took over the team earlier last month. All of these players are young and any one of them would benefit greatly from the experience of being integrated into the squad this early in their career. Still, none of them have proven themselves on the continental level and our lack of experience is slightly worrying.

It’s looking more and more like Santos is going to have to produce some great performances, at least early on in the tournament, if we are to progress into the second round and then go from there. Nevertheless, calling up a youngster could be a good building block for the future as the African title is not the only thing at stake here. We must prepare this young generation for the 2010 World Cup so that when it rolls around we have players who are battle tested and ready (assuming we qualify of course). We’ll see what Lemerre and the technical staff decides. If you believe the papers it’s not really a group decision though, Lemerre has the reputation of being a dictator and will do as he pleases. Hopefully he makes a good one…

I’d be happy to see any one of these guys in the team. I guess my preference is for Mouihbi (even though he isn’t a prototypical center forward and more of a second striker) as Club Africain is my team since childhood. However, I won’t be upset if they select any of the other three options that were cited instead. Perhaps the one I see as least likely to make it is Ben Dhifallah. Despite playing in the Club World Cup and doing pretty well, he doesn’t get that much first team action for Etoile and I think Akrout and Mouihibi have more of a knack for scoring goals which is exactly what we need at that position. Still, I have been wrong before so I guess we’ll just have to find out in the coming days. What do you think? Any preference? Anyone not mentioned that you think could bring something to to the team in attack?

Mouihbi Special on Hannibal TV

Youssef Mouihbi Soui3a Sport
Uploaded by clubist

In Other News

After last minute rejections from Moroccan and Egyptian federations it has been agreed that we will play Zambia twice before the African Cup (one game on the 6th of January and the second on the 8th) and then will play ever improving Equatorial Guinea on the 13th. It’s not perfect but at least there’s three games before our boys leave for Accra and continue to Tamale on the 18th. If you believe FIFA though, we’re playing Benin on the 11th… More on this when more details surface.

Tags: Ali Zitouni, Amir Akrout, Carthage Eagles, Club Africain, David Jemmali, Group H, Tunisia Soccer, Youssef Mouihbi, Zouhaier Dhaouadi

Tunisia World Cup RSS Feed

del.icio.us:Injuries Force New Decisions in African Cup List

digg:Injuries Force New Decisions in African Cup List

newsvine:Injuries Force New Decisions in African Cup List

reddit:Injuries Force New Decisions in African Cup List

fark:Injuries Force New Decisions in African Cup List

Y!:Injuries Force New Decisions in African Cup List

stumbleupon:Injuries Force New Decisions in African Cup List

Comments

By Bman | December 28th, 2007 at 7:39 pm

What is the damage to calling up even 10 strikers to try. Lemerre loves Santos, suppose another guys comes to training and totally outplays Santos.Lemerre is hardly giving anyone else a chance.

If we are playing the same team twice( Zambia) wouldnt it be great if Lemerre allowed 6 strikers, basically all the guys you mentioned into the prelim squad so he could try different combinations. I think Lemerre should stop being stubborn and call up all the strikers you mentioned. I saw Ben Dhifallah and I wasnt impressed enough, he doesnt have the speed or hunger necessary. We saw him play alongside Chermiti in the Club World cup, and Chermiti was starving to recieve the ball. Chermiti had to fight for everything himself.

Calling up Zitouni of all people is reaching and im glad he isnt going, so it is cool that someone new can have a chance. Given what we hear, Lemerre wants to take 3 strikers in a squad of 23 . Basically we have the same number of strikers as we do goalkeepers. This indicates more defense strategy which alot of us do not like.

I know for sure that the top strikers in the Tunisian League 1 can outplay Santos at this time. I hear that even Chermiti only has one goal this season. So Lemerre should definitly find someone that is on a roll.

Posted from United States

By Bman | December 28th, 2007 at 7:47 pm

Nice Clip Rami, i like his attitude.

Posted from United States

By Moni | December 28th, 2007 at 11:58 pm

but I don”t understand, Tunisian FA says nothing to Lemmerre ? After WorldCup 2006 Catastroffe ? Same missery pre matches Zambia ? and not 1 but 2 Times ? its Like nodbody wants to play with us Samething happend at pre praperation/matches for WC 2006. Pauvre Tunisia

Posted from Netherlands

By thamer | December 29th, 2007 at 12:32 pm

i disagree rami, although i want akrout and mouihbi to get called up, bendhifallah is probably most likely to get called up. he is the oldest out of all of them, is the most experienced, having playing in continental competitions, and he plays for etoile(scored a brace today)…so, that just about does it. i dont think we’re going for a defensive approach this year though…at least i hope we arent. although we dont have that many top strikers, technically chikhaoui and jemaa are midfielders and theyre more than capable of scoring goals. and people are forgetting that ben saada is in really good form right now as well, so we’re not only stuck with santos. but yea, i’m grateful for all that lemerre has done…but hes really holding us back, i hope marchand is our next national coach, he knows the national league very well and knows who has the potential to be big. until then we’ll just have to suck it up.

Posted from United States

By Rami | December 29th, 2007 at 1:18 pm

sup Bman, I honestly don’t know why he didn’t call up more attackers. I guess it’s an indication that Lemerre is starting to have a specific lineup in mind (bout time!) but you don’t lose anything bringing players into the team for a training camp just so they get their bearings and start feeling like they’re a part of the group.

Moni, Zambia twice isn’t what we expected but I’m still glad they managed to get another game in. The more competitive playing time we get before the African cup the better. Clearly I would have enjoyed a Morocco or Egypt matchup a lot more but if we play our cards right we may just be facing Egypt in the second round. The other potential matchup is Cameroon or the Sudan and Zambia but clearly the the first two are favorites. Interesting potential storyline is if Zambia makes it into the second round and we face them for the third time in a month. That would be kinda crazy. I’m getting ahead of myself though. You can’t worry too much about who you’ll face though, it doesn’t serve much of a purpose, especially since winning the African Cup will require us to beat very very good teams.

hey Thamer, you make a good point about his continental experience. definitely a key and I had given it some thought but even with that I guess my Clubiste bias swayed me the other way… that makes it 9 players from etoile in the team for now if he comes and no outfield players from Club Still, I guess when we’re talking national team the idea is to put club affiliations aside. As I said before I won’t have much reason to be upset if the Ben Dhifallah gets called up as I’m worried they’ll pull a u-turn and not call anyone up at all.

With the players we have in the team we might not go AS defensive but look at Lemerre’s track record with us. He always favors an emphasis on defense and prudence. Hell, even when we HAD to win against Ukraine in that last game he played a 4-5-0 when Jaziri got sent off. Because of that I think we’ll once again only see one true striker on the field at a time. You’re right though, Chikha and Jemaa are more than capable of scoring their share of goals and we can get some from other players as well. Honestly one good thing about Lemerre is that his tactical mindset makes it hard for teams to do what they want against us. We usually keep a good defensive shape and that’s one thing I credit him for. In the African Cup that kind of stability is so useful. When we play European teams (not that we’ve been doing a lot of that lately) I usually come away wishing why we didn’t go all out and just attack relentlessly because sitting back for too long against those teams usually lands you in trouble. I like Marchand too, his personality really puts people at ease while Lemerre manages to make enemies all over.

Posted from United States

Comments are closed