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Victory! Tunisia Beats Belgium 4-2 in U17 World Cup Opener!

August 20th, 2007 | By: Rami | 7 Comments »

I haven’t seen the match yet but I was up early this morning pathetically staring at my computer screen trying to find ways to catch it somehow. Unfortunately even in this world of incredible technological accomplishments, I wasn’t able to watch the game on any streaming video. If you know of a method, let me know ;). Of course in a perfect world I could have watched the thing on FIFA’s very own FIFATV which broadcasts the games live online. However, for some reason (capitalism?) this service is not available in the USA. Instead, I had to rely on the always irritating yet strangely addictive FIFA “matchcast.” So rather than watching my team play, I got to read my team play. Anyone who has put themselves through such an exercise before knows that this represents the height of football masochism. It does provide for a lot of suspense, but it sucks to have to use your imagination while you sit at your computer wondering what’s going on between updates. Amazingly, I did finally get to catch highlights of the game (not a direct link but they can be found on the page).

Lucky for me, my U17 Tunisian fellas paid little mind to my viewing difficulties and proceeded to put away Belgium 4-2 in their first game in Korea. Even when reading the play by play it was easy to gather that Tunisia was dominating the early going. There were a great deal of shots being fired at goal and in the 20th minute one from Oussama Boughanmi broke the deadlock. 4 minutes later a well placed corner surprised Khaled Ayari as it bounced off of his body and across the goal line. A lucky goal but a deserved one nevertheless as the young Carthage Eagles kept up the pressure. It looked like Tunisia was going to cruise but Belgium managed to score two successive goals of their own. I got the feeling we were losing control of the match but Youssef Msakni finished off a brilliant passing move to put us back in the lead. Things got a little bit more complicated from there though, as Boughanmi got his second yellow and was sent off in the 52nd minute. Playing a man down for almost the entire second half the Tunisian teenagers managed to not only hold on to the win but to add another goal for good measure. It came on a penalty kick from Msakni, giving him a brace. Thankfully, Tunisia showed great character in holding on to the lead. Perhaps this could all be better summed up by Bob Browaeys, the Belgian manager who said: “Tunisia were the best team today and they deserve the win.” Considering the fact that we took more than twice as many shots as they did, I’d have to agree.

Next up is the United States. If my information is correct, the match will be aired on ESPN2 in the early hours of Thursday, August 23rd. You can bet that I’ll be following intently.

Tags: Korea 2007, Tunisia, Tunisia Soccer, Tunisia U17, U17 World Cup

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Comments

By Bman | August 20th, 2007 at 7:40 pm

Whats Up Rami, nice to see someone is keeping us up to date,

I was the blogger here for Tunisia during the worldcup last year. Hollering at a fellow Tunisian American, im sure youve seen some of my commentary in the archives

Alright bro, goodluck man!

Posted from United States

By Rami | August 20th, 2007 at 8:30 pm

Bessam rite? yea dude, I definitely read your blog religiously when you were at the helm. I think I even commented a few times. Thanks for the support brotha and hope all is well with you.

Posted from United States

By Mo | August 21st, 2007 at 10:36 am

This is a nice blog, keep it up! Going back to the game though, which i was lucky enough to watch live for free on espn360.com, i have to say that the Tunisian team played very well, and deserved their three points. The Belgians were a solid side, but they never expected the Tunisians to have such technical superiority. It was fun watching Tunisia play, attack, attack and more attack..it was like watching a little Argentina play! until they were a man down when they actually backed up a little to defend the win, and in fact Belgium’s two goals were really gifts from the Tunisian defense which played a high line. But overall I’m really impressed with the team’s performance, and having seen the other game between Tajikistan and USA, I’ll have to say that Tunisia are the best team in the group in terms of technique. USA plays typical English style football with pace , a lot of crosses and long balls. Tajikistan are deadly with the striking power and they work as one team, defend together and attack together. But if Tunisia can show us the attacking power they have again and play with a little more discipline and concentration in the back, they should have no trouble getting through the group stages. The four guyes up front Hadhria, Ayari, Msakni, Boughanmi and right back Ifa are very lethal promising youngsters. It wouldn’t surprise me to see them move to Europe after the tournament is over.

Posted from United States

By Rami | August 21st, 2007 at 1:27 pm

Thanks for the words of encouragement Mo! Glad to hear ESPN 360 is working for some people out there. You’re totally on point with your analysis of the match and the talent of the players. I finally got to catch longer highlights and our attacking options are quite impressive. Too bad we’ll be without Boughanmi vs. the US.

You mentioned these guys possibly going to Europe and hopefully they do. Apparently Nour Hadhria is being scouted by Bayer Leverkusen at the moment. I’m sure others will be taking long and hard looks and him and others in the squad as they continue to impress.

Posted from United States

By thamer | August 21st, 2007 at 3:36 pm

i was doing the exact same thing as you rami, matchcast, that is. i saw the highlights and thought we played well as well. looking at the americans’ goals, two of them were headers and one of them was just horrible defending by the tajiks, if we tighten up at the back, we shouldnt have any problems. i also think that our coach reserved some of his better players for later matches. habib kasroaui, the goal keeper was chosen to be on the african u-17 selection in the meridian cup which was played against europe. mohammad karoui-defence, was also chosen to be a part of this african all star squad. however, neither of these players started against belgium, interesting to see what kanzari has planned. by the way, keep up the good work on the blog rami, im glad to see someone is as passionate as i am about tunisian football.

Posted from United States

By Rami | August 22nd, 2007 at 8:26 am

hahaha, glad to hear someone was suffering with me through matchcast football Thamer! the game against the US will be on ESPN2 at 4am tomorrow but I believe the Tajikistan one is not available on TV August 26th. However guess what I found? I watched some of Syria vs Spain live on this site (I knew there was a way!):

http://www.channelsurfing.net/

Just make sure that you have windows media player and that you use internet explorer as your browser when you try to play the games. This is seriously a godsend. Without this site we probably would not be able to catch live coverage of our dear Tunisia in their last group game. I’ll include this in my next post in case some of you miss this.

By the way, it’s great to be getting some feedback from Tunisia fans. Happy to see you’re out there supporting the Carthage Eagles with me

Posted from United States

By Walid | August 22nd, 2007 at 11:16 am

I have missed the match, I overslept:p Buth I’ve watched the highlights on internet afterwards. I was suprised by the win!:d this team has great attacking power buth lacks a bit on the defence. I think we would have no problems getting trought this group phase. I hope they would go far in this Word cup. And not dissapoint us like senior National team did in all her previous world cup appearances!
greetings

Posted from Belgium