Securing The Bare Minimum

To say that Saturday’s match against Burkina Faso in Ouaga was stressful might just be the very definition of an understatement. I watched the match alongside my countryman Seif and he can attest to how distraught I was throughout the entire thing. Even after the game was finished and we had secured a tie, I was still dazed as could be. Dude was trying to have a conversation but was mostly getting one word responses in return (sorry about that buddy). He wanted to talk specifics and I was just sitting there in the chair looking emptily into the distance, doing my best to offer coherent answers. You would have thought we had lost or something.

I think it had to do with just how close this game came to being a complete disaster. What did it for me was the Selliti missed chance. Actually that’s not accurate. It wasn’t the fact that he missed the chance itself. It’s what happened right after. The ensuing counter attack concluded with an incredible Burkinabe scissor kick that narrowly missed the target. If that had went in, I’d probably be on suicide watch. On one end we very nearly wrapped things up with the perfect goal and then in one instant the Eagles came absurdly close to crash landing and bursting into flames.

It really scared the hell out of me.

Match Analysis

Given the fact that we put out what can only be described as an experimental and audacious lineup, I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we didn’t do anything worth mentioning in the first half. It was all Burkina, all the time. Their clearest opportunity came off of a missed defensive assignment by Ben Zekri (who looked excruciatingly slow on that left side) that put a Burkina striker one on one with Balbouli. Thankfully our keeper, who continues to show there’s no going back to Kasraoui, was quick to pounce and cut off his angle, forcing the shot to go wide.

The way we sat back and gave up the midfield, you would have thought we were still living in some Lemerrian nightmare. Nothing was working and Burkina Faso smelled blood. They kept mounting attacks but we’re lucky that Karim Haggui and Seif Ghezal were both imperial in defense. They won almost all their duels and provided great coverage for one another and the rest of their teammates. Too bad they weren’t as adept at finding outlets. That wasn’t entirely their fault though as Youssef Mouihbi and Fahid Ben Khalfallah were very dissapointing on the wings.

This brings me to another point. Anyone who reads the blog knows that I’m a fan of Coelho and what he’s trying to accomplish with our national team. He’s gotten good press in Tunis and it’s been warranted because he’s open, polite, and favors an offensive approach. With that said, his decision to start Ben Khalfallah in a game like this is difficult to justify. Sometimes a baptism by fire can work but we’re talking about a decisive match that was going to define the next couple of years for the national team. Do you really entrust that kind of responsibility to someone on his first call up?

I would have easily favored Ben Saada in this situation. The man has been through wars and knows Africa unlike Fahid who has barely stepped foot in it. I don’t mean to rag on the kid, he’s a talented player and I’m sure has a lot to offer us in the future. It’s just Coelho put him in a very difficult position. It was hard to comprehend but at least the CAEN midfielder’s level of play did improve considerably in the second half.

Another bizarre decision was favoring Houcine Ragued to Jawhar Mnari. Sure Houcine came close to scoring on a thunderbolt drive from distance and found Selliti with what should have been the game winning assist but Mnari’s experience would have come in handy in a pressure cooker like this one. Those are the two main qualms I have with Coelho’s lineup. To a lesser extent, I would have much preferred to see Chammam, despite his inexperience on this stage, rather than Ben Zekri deputizing at left back for the simple reason that the former is a natural lefty. We barely had any attacks down that side and Ben Zekri was quickly targeted as the slowest member of the team by the opposition. He eventually settled in a little but was not convincing for the vast majority.

Making it to halftime without conceding a goal was one positive and if you think about all of the members of the team we had missing, it was perhaps a little foolish to think we would put forward masterful display of ball possession. You can’t build a team in one week. Especially when a new system is being put into place. The second half we faintly resembled ourselves. The main reason this occurred was due Mouihbi being replaced with Majdi Traoui. I’ve made it known that I am not the biggest fan of Traoui. I don’t have anything against him I just always thought we had better options at his position. Full credit to him though because he brought balance to our midfield and we finally started creating linkages between the three lines. It seemed like everyone calmed down when he came on.

Tijani Belaid was unrecognizable. Ironically the one moment where he looked like the player we know was when he made a really bad decision on the ball. He dribbled past a few players and could have put Selliti through on goal with a well placed pass but elected to continue dribbling and drew a foul instead. The free kick wasn’t in a bad position but Selliti was visibly upset with our Czech expat.

No matter, Selliti didn’t really prove that he would have done much with that pass if he had gotten it since he wasted a golden opportunity at the end. After I talked at length about his efficiency and concentration in crucial moments, he flubs our best chance. I’m sure he’s kicking himself over that one still because after four years away from the NT, he had a chance to be a hero. In a post match interview he said he hesitated for a second because he wanted to be completely sure of putting it away. Instead he left enough time for a defender to catch up and get a touch on his strike. No need to hold it against him as these things happen in football. Besides that he led the line to the best of his ability. It’s just too bad he didn’t see much of the ball due to our ineffective midfield.

As I said before the game, the manner in which we would secure this result would not matter a great deal. What does matter is that multiple sources (Mosaique, Infosfoot, TN Sport) agree that we booked our ticket to the third and final round of qualifying for Angola and South Africa 2010. Fifa has yet to confirm this (they’re waiting for the final day of competition before they do all that crazy math) but doing so without the likes of Chikhaoui, Namouchi, Nafti, Chermiti, Dos Santos, Ben Frej, and others is nothing short of outstanding. We still have a match against Seychelles that probably wont count for much unless Burkina manages to lose against Burundi in the last qualifier. It still could prove to be good goal therapy in Tunis and then there’s the two France friendlies the France friendly to look forward to. After that, qualifiers pick up again in March.

That’s plenty of time for Coelho to get more familiar with his environment and also enough time for our influential players to return from injury or regain fitness. If you consider the alternative (and disastrous) route this could have easily taken, one can only be thankful.

On the lighter side

How ridiculous is this picture? This is what they mean when they say Jaidi’s presence is so valuable to the squad!!! Not only is he into hip hop but now he’s acting too. Talk about a jack of all trades! Priceless stuff.