Heartland FC 3 – 0 Etoile du Sahel : Absolute humiliation

By: Houssem | August 17th, 2009

I’m really starting to reconsider my cocky comments about how easy it would be to win this Champions League. Yesterday we seriously compromised our chances of even reaching the semi finals by losing in the worst fashion against Heartland FC from Owerri, Nigeria, another Champions League newcomer. It seems now that the form regain of the past few weeks was but a mere illusion, and that we’re now rediscovering the true face of this year’s Etoile : unable to score, naive in the back, inconsistent, and to sum it up, painful to watch.

The team traveled to Nigeria with a chartered plane (a luxury not a lot of clubs in Africa can afford), hoping to achieve something tunisian clubs have failed to do since they got involved in continental competitions : actually beating a local team. Heartland FC were hard to predict, not only because they are new to the competition, but because they also had an away defeat and a home win before that game, like all other teams in Group B. The major consensus was that Etoile would play for a point to ensure a serious advantage in topping the group, but that meant not reckoning with Heartland’s simple yet effective football.

The first 20 minutes were quite entertaining from an Etoile supporter’s point of view, and it really could have gone either way without some impressive goalkeeping by Mathlouthi and especially Heartland’s Austin Brown, who denied Sadat Bukhari on two occasions. From there on the Etoile ship began its journey towards sinking as Agba and Obaje gave their team a comfortable 2-0 lead before the break, with both goals resulting from naive man marking and positioning.

As the second half started, I hoped that the spirit which helped us come back in the last two games would save the day once again, but it just wasn’t there. Zouaghi and Nafkha seemed to have lost any connection to the team, Opara had the fitness of a 70 year old, and Jedaied was far too isolated to provide anything decent. It was only a matter of time before Owerri made it 3-0 for the home team, as we failed to even reduce the score knowing the importance of goal difference on direct confrontations.

We have a long struggle ahead of us, and no choice but winning our two next games, at home against Heartland and Monomotapa, before trying to get a miracle win in the DR Congo against group leaders Mazembé. On the first look, you might think the lads will get their act together and get those 6 points, backed with the home advantage, but from what I’ve seen yesterday, I wouldn’t put my hand in the fire on it. If you look at our opponents’ conditions and salaries, and the fact that some teams don’t even have a sponsor, you’re entitled to give our players no excuse for such a display. Moreover, we have to stop lingering about the fact that only 3 players are left from the squad that won the CL 2 years ago. This is professional football, people, and infuent players moving to Europe is nothing new for us, so just get over it.

It’ll be interesting to see what Lotfi Rhim has in mind as we prepare to face Hammam Sousse and Hammam Lif in the league before hosting Heartland FC. That is if he doesn’t get fired before, of course.