CS Hammam-Lif Kicks It Up A Notch

By: Houssem | March 10th, 2009

It was an exciting matchday for both Étoile and Espérance fans, as the Sang & Or went back on top and Club Africain’s 3-1 defeat against Hammam-Lif allowed us to claim the second spot, only one point behind EST (full table here).

I really wouldn’t have thought we’d still have a three-horse race with only four games to go. The decade of EST domination got us used to a dull league, but the thrill of the last couple of years definitely makes up for the lacking quality of play.

I don’t know what happenend to Abdelhak Ben Chikha’s side yesterday. The players probably spent the week clubbing after their 3-0 victory in the Tunis derby and thought it would be all easy from there on. Ben Chikha himself stated that he neglected the psychological aspect of preparation for the CSHL game due to his “personal circumstances” (his mother passed away two days before the derby). There’s certainly some truth in that. The CA staff should have known better than neglecting a game against this CSHL side, led by young coach Fethi Labidi. This team likes to play entertaining football just for the sake of it, and are never under pressure. This way they held up Espérance 2-2 a couple of weeks ago. We still have to play them in Sousse, and I’m assuming Gernot Rohr will give this fixture a special attention.

A look at the remaining fixtures tells me that Club Africain are facing some tough weeks ahead : Two difficult trips to Jendouba and Gafsa, two teams struggling against relegation, and two home games against CS Sfaxien and Stade Tunisien, two good teams that are under no pressure for results and who will probably just play like Hammam-Lif did. We have a trip to Sfax, and one cup fixture more than CA, so things are pretty tight for us as well.

One way or the other, the “final” against Espérance will be decisive, and hopefully a game to remember !

As I mentioned on my previous post, I want to give liveblogging a try, but I wouldn’t do it only for myself. Tell me whether you’d be interested or not :

Would you like to follow a live-blog on the ESS Offside for the ASO Chlef CL game ?
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