Étoile vs. Al Merreikh preview

By: Houssem | September 11th, 2008

After 2 games in this Confederation Cup group stage, things are back to square one in Group B, every team having won and lost a game. The outcome of Saturday’s game will be crucial to knowing who will make it to the final, even if anything can still happen afterwards. Yet we don’t have another choice but winning since the key to qualifying lies in winning all your home games and doing well away, which didn’t work out so well for us against JS Kabylie.

Two key players will be back to the first team : Afouène Gharbi and the oh-so-efficient Sadat Bukhari. This is definitely good news, since I imagine nobody was impressed by Mehdi Ben Dhifallah’s performance in Tizi-Ouzou. Not sure about Afouène Gharbi though … he hasn’t played a single game yet, so I imagine he could make the bench but nothing more. Then again, what use could you have for a non fully fit player in such an important game ? I think Decastel will let him make his return progressively in the “easy” league games to assess his form. Besides, midfield hasn’t really been Étoile’s problem lately. The likes of Bassem Ben Nasr and Mejdi Mosrati have shown great engagement and can only improve in the coming weeks/months.

Souhaeil Ben Radhia is still very uncertain, but with the return of Mohamed Sacko from international duty, we shouldn’t worry about the either side either.

Looking forward to a game with as many goals as there are courses in a tunisian Ramadan meal !

Category: Match Previews

Tags: Al Merrikh, CAF Confederation Cup, Match Previews

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Comments  

• Yassine |  September 12th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

  
  
  

  Inshallah Marbou7a

  Posted from United States

  

• Rachid |  September 13th, 2008 at 5:19 pm

  
  
  

  They got the job done! Some inexperience is somewhat evident, but overall the team looks good. Good luck next week against the same opponent!

  http://www.zshare.net/video/187234518ec4ae30/

  Posted from United States

  

• Adel |  September 14th, 2008 at 7:33 am

  
  
  

  Hello Houssem,

  Good afternoon,

  Except from Ben radhia and Aymen abdennour, The kings of the continent were almost complete, the performance was too good that we strongly beleive we will finish head of the group.
  Despite he is a left legged player Mehdi did his best on the right side, together with Nafkha, Tambo, Felhi, Sadat and Emeka they all were great and kept threatening the visitors goal during the whole match.
  I would like to dedicate yeserday’s victory to the late
  Abdelhafidh Bouraoui, one of the pioneers who from the fiftees participated in the growth of our big club of which we are proud today.

  Adel M’rabet – Sousse

  Posted from United States

  

• imad |  September 15th, 2008 at 1:29 am

  
  
  

  hey listen guys we respect your team history, yet , do not get so exited .. quite honestly u need to curb your horses and also please bare in mind for almerrikh it’s just a matter of time until we show how good we play (al mambo alsudani). come to your dady etoileists we are surely going to beatt you like a drum in Omdurman.

  And tell everybody you know that we strongly beleive in finshing on top of this group….and moreover, nothing is going to stop us this season from wining the trophy.

  east or west merrikh is the best

  we love you tunis but we love haitham tambal more (- ‘)

  tc

  Posted from United States

  

• Francis Takyi |  September 29th, 2008 at 2:24 pm

  
  
  

  Hi Sadat this is Francis from Ghana, I hope you make to Ghana for the Kotoko game. please score two goals for me. Greetings from everyone in Ghana. Greetings to Monica

  Posted from United States

  

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