The Finger Pointing Begins: Retired Star and Assistant Manager Get Into It

Like many Tunisian fans, retired Etoile legend and former national team player Zoubayer Beya had some strong opinions following the loss to Sudan that left Tunisia in second place and with a lower seeding in Ghana 2008. Since then the assistant to the National Team, Nabil Maaloul, responded in an interview on Tunisian radio that spurred Beya to give his very own interview in which he reaffirms his position regarding his negative comments and justifies them. The scathing criticism can be heard and seen in the video below.

For those who do not speak tunisian arabic I have taken the time to translate the majority of what is said. Perhaps translate isn’t the right word, because some Tunisian expressions defy translation. Think of it as a cross between that and a paraphrase. It’s not an exact science but it gets the point across. I skipped over some redundant parts:

1. Starts out with Maaloul’s comments on radio:
Maaloul: “He’s trying to settle scores he’s not analysing the team. If you work in a respected corporation, in Tunisian TV and you don’t know how to do match analysis then that’s your problem not ours.”

2. Then goes to Zoubayer Beya’s interview:
Zoubayer: “He’s (Maaloul) talking to someone who’s played a lot more football then him like Ben Yahia or like myself, Zoubayer Beya. It’s not good to talk about oneself, however I’m pushed to explain facts that everyone must know. Nabil Maaloul is an assistant manager in the national team, he doesn’t have the right to speak in the place of the manager. And what I referred to has nothing to do with the assistant, he has no involvement, he applies the decisions of the manager. Secondly, I’ve analyzed matches on more channels then he has in just a year and half of work….

If we’re going to talk about soccer, I’ve played more than he has in the African Cup. I don’t think he’s heard of the African Cup. He never put his foot in it. And the world cup, I played in it twice. He never put his foot in it. In the national team, I’ve scored 12 goals and played 80 games. If he has better then let me hear it. Plus I went to Germany to play during my club career. So people (Maaloul) wanna open their mouths? These are the facts. I’m not talking about who he knows and who he doesn’t. I’m talking X’s and O’s.”

Reporter: “He said that if you’re talking like this you must have some vendetta or something.”

Zoubayer: “vendetta, you think I don’t like the guy or that I hate him or something? What’s ridiculous is that I didn’t talk about him. The national team is everyone’s property. The whole country. I lived in it for 8 years and any Tunisian has the right to it. And I spoke about the team, not about specific people. It has nothing to do with him, he’s in a secondary position. The manager is Roger Lemerre, he’s the guy we judge as Tunisians, and everyone has the right to do it. If he (Maaloul) is happy that we qualified second in a group comprised of the Seychelles, Mauritius, and Sudan,a team that hasn’t played in the African Cup since 1976 then… with all my respect to Sudan who beat us deservingly. Tunisian football has grown and ranks high in Africa. It’s not him that’s going to come and happily say don’t criticize the result or watch out if you try to say negative things. When we did good work, we won the African Cup. Back then, Maaloul was in his place, an assistant to Lemerre who is the decision maker. When we started getting into who said what and making special relationships with certain clubs so that we take call up their players before they are ready and we forget other people then I think some things have went too far and the guy has to be put in his place. If they really wanted to bring someone in to be a good assistant they would have taken Belguesem who produces results or Ben Yahia who has won the double and the cup with Esperance and has proved himself but this is a man that has not succeeded in football, he’s the last person that should be able to speak about it. Especially when they’re making the types of mistakes that they’re making presently.”

Personally, I’m siding with Beya on this one despite the fact that he says he doesn’t want to talk about himself but it’s clear that he’s tooting his own horn here. In fairness, he’s doing it to prove a point and to add to his credibility. It might seem like like he’s blowing things sliiiightly out of proportion if you take into consideration the players we had missing and the out of shape players we had out are disposal for the game but he’s not just talking about our last game. This has been building up ever since we lifted the African Cup in 2004. There is a sense among the majority of Tunisians that ever since we reached that goal in 2004, we have ceased to do the hard work that got us in that position in the first place. I’d go further and say its not just a sense, it’s a reality. There are multiple examples of poor planning and poor decision making at the highest levels of management in the FTF. Some people are simply not doing their jobs. More on this in the next post where Lemerre’s position will be called into question…

An interesting side note to this post that I can’t help but mention is that when I was in 6th grade and on my way to school with a few of my friends we saw Zouba come out of an apartment building and head to his car carrying a suitcase. He was on his way to the airport and seemed to be in a hurry but he had enough time to sign autographs and talk to us a little before he sped off. Seemed like a charming guy. I probably lost the autograph that very day since it was written on a loose piece of paper that I tore from a notebook but I still remember how crazy it was to see someone who appeared on tv in the flesh. Even though he played for a team I was technically meant to hate, a national team player of his stature remains a hero no matter what. He was part of an amazing team that made it to the final of the 96 African Cup in South Africa where we finished second to the hosts. What was incredible about that run is that it came only 2 years after we hosted the tournament on home soil and didn’t even make it past the group stages. Maybe that type of resilience should give us hope for the future. Or maybe it just shows that we’re gonna suffer a little more before people get their acts together.