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Santos Sochaulien Once More

July 1st, 2008 | By: Rami | 16 Comments »

Dos Santos Silva Francileudo Silva Dos Santos or just “Santos” as most Tunisians call him has finally escaped Toulouse. Today, the president of Sochaux, Jean Claude Plessis, announced on RTCI that they had just signed our international to a one year contract.

Previous rumors had linked him to Grenoble but his former club came out on top. Not only is this great news but its a logical step as the roadrunner (a nickname his teammates gave him) is still revered by Sochaux fans for the Ligue II goalscoring title he received the year they were promoted.

Last season must have felt like a living hell as he had a falling out with his coach and wasted away on the bench for an entire year. When he did take part in games, it was always cameo appearances in which he didn’t have the fitness or the confidence to be effective.

Not only did his reputation in France suffer but even in Tunisia there was a considerable amount of supporters (including me) who were incensed at Lemerre’s decision to take him to Ghana when he was lacking competition.

At the African Cup, he ended up scoring two goals when it should have been three and was non existent at times (you remember that slip in front of the open goalmouth after that superb run from Chikhaoui?) While he gave all he could, you could still see it wasn’t the Santos of 2004 who played an instrumental role in helping us lift our first continental title. Goal poaching instincts remained intact but it was painfully obvious that his pace and endurance just weren’t up to par.

He hasn’t taken part in any National team games since then yet his tally of 22 goals in 39 appearances with the Carthage Eagles are a constant reminder that we’ve never had such a prolific attacker in our history. Here’s to hoping that he can get his legs under him, regain some of that lost enthusiasm, and start reminding us of why we naturalized him in the first place.

And with that there’s only one thing left to say……

Bip! Bip!

Santos le tunisien
Uploaded by yanis91

Quick Transfer News

Left back Hichem Nsaibi joined Club Africain from Gafsa on a 3 year contract.

Opara is back at Etoile after an unsuccessful spell at Kaiserslautern. I believe it’s a 3 year contract also.

A BILD article claiming Chermiti will join Hertha Berlin after the Tunisian Cup final on Saturday. I guess we’ll know soon enough!

Tags: Dos Santos Silva, Francileudo dos Santos Silva, Grenoble, Group H, Lemerre, Sochaux, Toulouse

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Comments

By Achraf | July 1st, 2008 at 9:57 pm

I want to thank Santos for doing a great job with the national team, but your time is over, there is more talent now at that position. But I think Jaziri still has more time left in him, he is in great shape a have watched some of his games and hope that Coelho will bring him back to the Tunisia. Rami, will Coelho select his assistant on July 3rd?

Posted from United States

By Momo | July 1st, 2008 at 10:30 pm

Hey Achraf the Assistant coach is already selected, Habib Mejri.

By Rami | July 1st, 2008 at 10:45 pm

Yea more or less it’s Habib Mejri. It hasn’t been officially announced by the FTF but the only person Coelho met besides that is Skander Kasri and no one in the press is saying he’ll be the selection. I’d say its 95 percent Mejri. The FTF/Coelho will make the announcement either tomorrow or the 3rd.

I don’t want to write about it till its signed sealed and delivered.

As for Santos, you’re right that there’s more talent at that position now. But it’s hard to ignore him when he’s in form. If he starts scoring at will like he used to I don’t think we can afford to not call him up. He’s not my favorite player or anything but he’s so efficient when he’s on. He rarely misses an open chance, especially in a Tunisia jersey. I’m happy to hear you think Jaziri is still in good shape. I’m a fan of but I haven’t seen him play at all recently. I’d be open to see him in the squad as long as he’s physically ready to play. Still think we should build on youth for South Africa though (assuming we stay in the hunt to qualify)…

By Abdullah | July 1st, 2008 at 11:13 pm

Great article rami, loved the video too!

I really hope for Amine Chermiti that he gets to go to Hertha Berlin, so he can develope his skills on a higher level there.
He still appears a bit sloppy to me, so thats definatly a good thing if they sign him.

Also it’s always nice to hear something about gafsa transfers.

As for Dos Santos… well i havent seen much of him lately, i was wondering what happened, but this clears it up… it’s a shame really, i wouldve loved to see more of him( and maybe we still will ) but he couldve really helped the team out in these last few games.

Ah well.. time will tell us what coelho will do, and how things will go.

Posted from Netherlands

By Momo | July 2nd, 2008 at 11:17 am

Hey guyes I heard about Esperance striker Michael Eneramo trying to get citizenship to play for Tunisia. I hope this is true, because we really need a lot of players who can score goals especially with the upcoming WC qualifiers, we need more than just Chermiti and Jemaa to score. We have to dig deep into our resources and get as many players to play as we can. I am for recalling Santos, if his in form, because when he is he’s a machine. I don’t know if Jaziri can play or not, but if he’s ready then definitely we need his help. We have to get all players to play, because we need help scoring goals; Santos, Jaziri, Chermiti, Mouihbi, Chikhaoui, Jemaa, Eneramo, Akrout, Dhifallah..anyone that can score plzz..

By Rami | July 2nd, 2008 at 11:40 am

I think that scoring is a problem but creating goal scoring opportunities is even more of a problem. With the new system Coelho installs this should improve dramatically (in theory). I read about that Eneramo rumor on Tunisie-foot too. I don’t know man, I’m kind of sick of us naturalizing players all the time. If we qualify I want it to be with our boys. It’s one thing to naturalize French players of Tunisian descent but its another to take a Nigerian. He might love Tunisia and might score a lot of goals but in the end he’s not Tunisian… It’s a sensitive subject because it applies to Santos (and Clayton before him) too. I respect him and love him for the goals he scores and for wanting to wear our jersey and flag but at least with Brazilians we’re not the only ones that do it (there’s Brazilians in so many teams nowadays). Then you read things like the article I’m linking below and you realize that no matter how much he loves Tunisia, he’s still Brazilian.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/africa/3809359.stm

Posted from United States

By Achraf | July 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm

I agree with you Rami, When i saw the rumor, I was not a very happy person. I like The national team to win with Tunisians. Eneramo has no family from Tunisia. So why should they give him a citizen.

Posted from United States

By skander | July 2nd, 2008 at 1:41 pm

rami can you send me the website, if i’m not wrong i think you posted an article ranking the world leagues where we found tunisia in the 20th-22nd place if i’m right, please can you send me the link to that post or too a website that shows these statistics….

Posted from Sweden

By Rami | July 2nd, 2008 at 2:14 pm

Hey Skander, I actually didn’t write about that, Hatim left a comment on a post with the IFFHS (International Federation of Football History and Statistics) link. Thanks for reminding me about that. And thanks again to Hatim for providing it. It took some digging but I found it:

http://www.iffhs.de/?31748d0a

And you’re right, Tunisia was 22nd. I haven’t checked if they increased.

Posted from United States

By Rachid | July 2nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm

Why do we need to resort to naturalizing players, and especially unstable ones like Eneramo? We have players that can kick ass! Do we want to be another Qatar? This is another thing we inherited from Lemerre: lack of confidence in our abilities. I say we focus on true Tunisian talent and miracles will happen!

BTW, Rami, I don’t see any reaction from Moroccans about their new coach!

Posted from United States

By Rami | July 2nd, 2008 at 4:30 pm

Rachid, you mean on the Morocco blog here on WCB or just in general? I created an account on Morocco’s version of Tunisie-foot: http://www.lionsdelatlas.net/

I went in to see what their reactions were to his appointment and it seems like its 50/50. Some think it’s a catastrophe but a lot of people think he’ll succeed. I’ve said this before but I think he will have a god effect initially (like with us) and then will start taking too much control and making bizarre roster selections. The older he gets, the more stuck in his ways he becomes. He seemed so isolated from reality in the last cycle with us that I don’t know what to expect. A lot of the people on the forum there were saying that discipline was the major problem for Morocco and Lemerre will solve that. We’ll see what they think of his defensive approach though…

Posted from United States

By marwen | July 2nd, 2008 at 5:04 pm

Well thats great that Santos went to a club where he gets to play
if santos is in form i think the new coach should call him up because he will score lots of goals for us
you guys saw how when he wasn’t in form, he still scored 2 and almost scored another 2, which he hit the bar and ben saada scored.
eneramo is a good player to score goals if he gets service from other players, which tunisia isn’t really doing right now.

By Rachid | July 2nd, 2008 at 5:22 pm

Rami, I meant here on the Morocco WCB. Thanks for the link; I read one of the articles and they seem to know what they’re getting. I liked the comment “Froid, parfois distant.” I say that’s seeing the glass half full at this point. When Morocco failed in the last CAF in Ghana, they blamed the players based in foreign countries. So, I’m surprised they’d see Lemerre as the solution. I think he’s going to make things much worse, but they have been warned! Morocco also needs a good goal keeper; the one they currently have was a disaster in 2004 and even worse in 2006. But, that’s their problem.

Posted from United States

By Rami | July 3rd, 2008 at 8:43 am

You’re right, their goalie situation is pretty dismal. The one in 2004 basically cost them the final. I’m obviously not complaining since we ended up winning thanks to that but you have to say that he dropped a tame looking Clayton shot right into Jaziri’s path. It’s going to be interesting to follow Morocco’s results and playing style. We’ll know more about his one size fits all approach.

Posted from United States

By Skander | July 3rd, 2008 at 7:49 pm

Rachid why do you say the Morocco goalie was a disaster in 2004? He made one mistake in the final, and it seems he will be forever remembered for that. I think he was actually one of the better players of the tournament.

Posted from Australia