Tunisia-Zambia (1-2): A Tale of Two Halves
Pardon the cliche but there’s no other way to put it. The first half was absolutely pitiful. No cohesiveness, no team shape, no enthusiasm. Basically there was nothing… I barely recognized any of our players out there. Except for Yassine Chikhaoui who seemed to be the only one who gave a damn. The first five minutes actually weren’t that bad. We were controlling the ball and Chikhaoui made a nice pass to Kamel Zaiem who shot wide of the target. I thought we were doing alright but it quickly became clear that Zambia’s reliance on counter attacks coupled with our lazy approach to returning to defense was going to cause us problems. I’m thinking especially of Zaiem and Mohammed Ali Nafkha who did a terrible job recovering when we lost the ball. I’ve really never seen such wide open spaces in our area. It looked like no one knew where they were supposed to go!
In the seventh minute, Zambia scored off their first chance as Katongo’s powerful shot was deflected by Abdi into the goal. Chikhaoui almost returned things to 1-1 singlehandedly when he blew past four defenders. Unfortunately, after showing us his strength in dribbling, he confirmed the only real criticism we have of him: He holds onto the ball way too long sometimes. He could have shot a number of times on his run but instead he decided to hold on until the entire Zambian defense capitulated on him as he got into the box. We didn’t even get a chance to catch our breath as Zambia doubled their lead only two minutes after their first goal. Once again, it was Katongo who blasted a left footed shot low and hard, past Kasraoui. This is when things got ugly.
The fans who came out were disgusted and it took them no time to voice their displeasure. A chant of “Jaziri Jaziri Ooooh” rang out as his fans took this chance to signal to Roger Lemerre that they were not impressed with his decision not to include the veteran in the list (I thought that they were maybe saying L’ifriqui Lifriqui in reference to Club Africain but upon further review I was wrong). Not only that but the fans made it a home game for Zambia: Whistling when we had the ball and cheering at every all Zambian passing and dribbling sequences (and there were a lot of them). I understand the frustration of the supporters (if you could call them that) but I really think they took it too far this time. They essentially made a bad situation worse and demoralized our players even more. Zambia was playing as a team: quick passes and no hesitancy. Meanwhile, we looked like a bunch of individuals that couldn’t find each other on the field.
One such individual was Chikhaoui who created another chance when he went past two defenders off a considerate Zaiem pass. Unfortunately, his shot clanged against the post and he was once again denied his first goal with the national team. Besides the moments of brilliance from Yassine, who was playing in attack rather than midfield, there wasn’t much else going. Things went from bad to worse as Issam Jomaa, our top scorer in African Cup qualifying, suffered a knock on a forceful tackle from a Zambian defender. Mehdi Ben Dhifallah came on to replace him after Jomaa couldn’t shake off the injury. According to the medical staff, the early prognosis is that nothing is broken and there was no ligament damage. We’ll have to wait to know for sure though.
Everyone looked frustrated and rightfully so. The Zambians simply outplayed us in all facets of the game in the first half. At the break I remember thinking, “now we’ll see if Lemerre can earn his paycheck.” Halftime speeches go a long way when players look like they lack concentration and Lemerre should be credited with breathing life into the team as they came out completely focused on the task at hand. No personnel changes, just a more positive attitude and a genuine commitment to put pressure on the Zambians when they passed the ball around in their area. Only a few minutes went by before Ben Dhifallah controlled a ball on his chest and passed it to an onrushing Chikhaoui who made no mistake this time from just outside the box and finally broke his duck with the national team (and what a way to do it!). If we can take anything positive from this game it will be that Yassine can now play freely and escape the questions surrounding his inability to score for the Carthage Eagles.
The early goal gave us a big morale boost and it was basically all Tunisia from there. No chances for Zambia for the entire half as they retreated into their area. We threw everything at them, hitting the crossbar once off a Karim Haggui header and the post off a pretty Zaiem free kick. Finally the fans were back on our side and although we created chance after chance, the equalizer just never came. It’s unfortunate as a draw seemed to be the logical outcome. A loss is not what we were looking for and not what the fans came to see but at this point I’d rather get losses out of our system early and then impress in Ghana where the scoreline matters a lot more.
So all in all, not a catastrophic result really. Just a worrisome first half performance followed by an encouraging second half. Thankfully we will be playing Zambia once again on Tuesday and will have another shot at getting a win before we face Iran on the 16th. Lemerre hinted after the game that we will see a different team on Tuesday as there are other players he wants to test. I’d like to see more of Chermiti, he only got 20 minutes today but whenever he comes on he is always dangerous as his bursts of speed often leave defenders very little time to do anything positive. Santos, Ben Saada Jaidi, and Nafti will be back as well. I think we really missed Nafti’s tenacity today. Nafkha just didn’t get things done in that first half and it was only when he came more into the middle of the pitch that things changed in the second.
The Lineup: Kasraoui, Souissi, Abdi (Ghezel 70′), Haggui, Mikari, Zaiem, Nafkha (Traoui), Mnari, Zouaghi, Jomaa (Ben Dhifallah), Chikhaoui (Chermiti 70′).
Chikhaoui’s Blast and Some Second Half Chances
It’s missing the Zaiem free kick
Chikhaoui’s Goal
Good service from Ben Dhifallah
Full Match Highlights
About 4 minutes and 45 seconds in
-
marwen
-
Rami
-
marwen
-
Rami
-
Skander
-
http://tunisia.worldcupblog.org Rami
-
Skander
-
http://tunisia.worldcupblog.org Rami
-
Skander
-
Skander
-
Skander
-
http://egypt.worldcupblog.org tamim
-
Bman
-
Bman
-
Rachid
-
Rami
-
http://www.worldcupblog.org/daily-dose/daily-dose-010708.html Daily Dose 01.07.08 – World Cup Blog
-
thamer
-
Rami
-
bman
-
http://www.my-news.biz/blog/Tunisia/2008/01/25/ghana-2008-tunisia-escapes-with-a-draw-against-senegal/ Tunisia » Blog Archive » Ghana 2008: Tunisia escapes with a draw against Senegal

World










