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By Mohamed Assed.
Bleda, 15 October:
Libya managed to wastefully blow away their final chance to book a ticket for the CAN 2013 . . .[restrict]Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa as the Libyan National Team lost their away game 0-2 on Sunday night to Algeria in the Mustafa Tchaker stadium in the city of Bleda, Algeria. It was a nervy and tense affair for the Libyans as they tried to overcome an already complex situation.
The Mediterranean Knights had already lost 1-0 at their home game in Casablanca a little more than a month ago. This time, the away game proved even more tense and frustrating. Only seven minutes after the start of the game, it was already 2-0 for Algeria.
To everyone’s complete shock, Libya’s coach Abdulhafeed Arbich decided to bench the matchless Ahmed Saad. Libya was already handicapped following the injuries of Ali Salama and Youssef Shibany, and was in dire need of their star player to start from the beginning. No one was able to replace Ahmed Saad’s commanding passes and directions in the middle of the field. He was and still is Libya’s only able classic number 10 player.
Despite his aging profile and lack of fitness, (Ahmed Saad has no club due to Libya’s suspended football league) he still is the man of the team and the one every Libyan fan looks upon when it matters most. Benching him killed the spirit of the team. Otherwise, Libya used its usual formation of 4-4-2, with Ahmed Zuway and Ihab Al-Bousefy as strikers.
The captaincy was given to Walid Jalal (Number 4) who played with Ahmed Mohammed (Number 2) as a centre back defender. Abdulhafeed Berresh (Number 3) played as a right-back while Mohammed Abdussalam (Number 13) played as a left-back. Sporting Braga’s impressive Jamal Mohamed played as a defensive midfielder, and he might have been the only promising spark in Libya’s gloomy night. The player, towering with his 1.95-metre height, passed the ball neatly, fought for every ball, and displayed clear evidence of his European sporting foundations.
On the other hand the Algerians fielded a 4-2-3-1 formation, flipping to 4-2-4 when attacking. Clearly it was an offensive formation and depicted Wahid Halilodzic remarks a few weeks before the start of the game of wanting to simulate FC Barcelona’s total football tactics (everyone attacks and everyone defends). The man may aspire whatever he pleases, but truth is there is only one FC Barcelona in our times.
In front of an unbelievably hostile crowd in Algeria, the hosts took on the first minutes of the game with clear vigour. They were pressuring the Libyans in their last half and were spraying passes all over the field. With the absence of two critical players in defence, namely centre backs Ali Salama and Youssef Shibany, the Libyans were on to a very long night as the Libyan defence looked pregnable and very shaky at each Algerian attack. In the fifth minute of the first half, the Algerians opened the score thanks to a header from the unmarked Soudany who headed the ball in the back of the net after meeting a deflected ball off the corner kick. The goal was due to a howler by the Libyan defence who left the player completely unmarked. Soudany had all the time in the world to plunge into the ball and head home to make it 1-0 to Algeria.
Just one minute after the first goal, Slimany, Algeria’s second striker added the second goal after a terrible blunder from Libyan goalkeeper, Mohammed Nashnoush who failed to successfully punch away the ball from his area. Slimany was in the right place at the right time and proved a canny aptitude in stealing away the awkwardly-punched ball from Nashnoush to head in the second goal for his country.
It was sound and clear, there was only one team on the field as the Algerians completely dominated the first ten minutes of the game, and with only nervous Libyan players to deal with, the team mates of Sofyan Fighouly, Algeria’s number 10 player, main star and FC Valencia’s second striker were clever to just knock the ball around the field and test Libyans’ patience. Those latter kept running improvidently off the ball as it was passed from one Algerian player to the other.
It was worth noting that Libyan midfielder Mohammed Sanany (Number 6) became famous in this game, especially amongst the Algerian fans and media, for all the wrong reasons. He was talking to the referee more than playing the ball and provoking the Algerians with foul play and a rude attitude on the pitch.
Sanany was completely unprofessional and nervous most of the time, and instead of calming the play and encouraging his teammates to focus more on the game after their calamitous start, he decided to take matters into hand in his own special way.
Nevertheless, in the 12th minute, Libya tried to reply quickly as striker Ahmed Zuway (Number 17) sent in a 25-metre nice left-shot that went inches away from the left post of Algerian goalkeeper, Rais Mboulhy. Right after Zuway’s missed shot, Kadamoro, Algeria’s left-back ran down the left flank of the Libyan defence and passed a through ball to Soudany. This latter crossed the ball nicely with his left foot to Sofyan Fighouly who missed the target from close range. It was almost 3-0 for Algeria.
Seven minutes later, we witnessed the first clear chance for the Libyans to score. Berresh, Libya’s right-back ran down the right flank of the Algerian defence and crossed the ball through to Ahmed Zuway and Ihab Al-Bousefy. Unfortunately, the linesman raised his flag indicating an apparently inexistent offside position of the Libyan attack. Unsurprisingly and as usual in African countries, the chance was hardly replayed by the camera man, who was another Algerian fan taking his fair share of expressing how ill-disposed the Algerian crowd really was towards on Sunday night.
After twenty-five minutes of play, the Algerians lessened their pace and regressed back to their last half. The Algerians were feeling pompous as they now lead the score 3-0 on aggregate.
As a result, Libya’s game slowly improved and we were seeing the first signs of life for the Libyan attack. Wasn’t it for another suspiciously raised flag from the linesman in the 27th minute, Ihab Al-Bousefy who took advantage of a long through ball in the back of the Algerian defence could have been on a one-on-one situation with the Algerian goalkeeper. Again the offside position was barely replayed by the camera man. Three minutes later, the Algerians had another chance to add to their tally. Then again, Libya’s goalkeeper, Nashnoush looked shaky and unconfident as he should have gotten out of his position to clear the ball off the defence area.
In the 32nd minute, Libya was handed their first yellow card of the game when Walid Jalal stepped with the bottom of his foot on a player’s Achilles’ tendon. The captain was very lucky not to get a red card on such a completely careless foul. Abdulaziz Berresh was also cautioned by the referee in the 40th minute for excessive contesting following an indirect free-kick decision to the Algerians. Amidst the raving end of the second half, the referee blew for half time. It was, evidently, time to field Ahmed Saad.
During the second half of the game, Abdulhafeed Arbich, expectedly, fielded Ahmed Saad. It was about time. Libya started the second half much better than their disastrous start to the match. They pressured the Algerian back-four consistently, and were showing clear signs of eagerness to score. In the 49th minute, a controversial decision from the referee to disallow Ihab Al-Bousefy’s goal added more anger to the already heated Libyan players. However, hastily and rather wastefully, the Libyans continued launching their attacks and keeping it tight backwards.
Minutes later, Algeria’s fans were completely off limits and crossed all lines of respect and sportsmanship when they vulgarly and offensively decided to pick on a rather notoriously known word as a chant. The Algerian crowd in an unbelievable scene of intimidation and provocation chanted, “Jourdaan…Jourdaan…Jourdaan…” (“Rats…Rats…Rats…”). The Algerian fans were plainly pointing to the Libyan players as “rats”.
Unexpectedly, the game burst into absolute pandemonium when suddenly and to every one’s astonishment on and off the field, Ahmed Sanany naively decided to walk off the field, as a reaction to the hostile Algerian masses, in the middle of the game, and called on his team mates to join him in an attempt to disrupt the flow of the match.
Minutes later, Ahmed Saad followed him and tried even to force the other Libyan players off the pitch. As a result of the incident, the referee suspended the game for seven minutes before the Algerian officials (led by the president of the Algerian Football Federation) convinced the Libyans players and the technical staff to get back to the field and ignore the fans.
In the 76th minute, Slimany almost added a third goal for Algeria following a well crossed ball from Kadir. The last fifteen minutes of the game witnessed some desperate Libyan chances to score at least one goal as Arbich played all his cards when he substituted Libya’s tough defensive midfielder, Jamal Mohammed for Salem Masoud. The referee added six minutes of additional time before blowing the final whistle of the game.
With Algeria’s qualification to the African Cup of Nations in 2013 in South Africa, they join the other two Arab nations, Morocco and Tunisia. The next game for the Mediterranean Knights, in March 2013, will be a World Cup qualifier match against Congo. We wish our National Team the utmost of luck in the coming months.
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