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Drawing
of lots
The organizers
Tunisia drawn in a tough pool
 Tunis,
Tunisia, August 21, 2008- The drawing of lots of the
2008 Men’s Junior African Nations Championship put the
organizers Tunisia in a the tough pool A of the
competition with Algeria, South Africa and Cameroon.
Pool B will feature the defending champions Egypt with
Morocco, Benin and Botswana. The opening ceremony of the
competition will show one match on Saturday between
Tunisia and the emerging South Africa at 18:00 at Sidi
Bousaid Hall in Tunis, Tunisia.
The competition that held 23 to 30 August 2008 will
feature three matches on Sunday as Cameroon plays
Algeria in Pool A while pool B shows Egypt vs. Botswana
and Morocco vs. Benin.
The competition will show a big fight between the
participating teams specially the defending champions
Egypt and the African big force Tunisia who have 6
titles under their built in this age category as well as
the emerging Algerian team and the usually disciplined
Morocco team.
The defending champions Egypt came to Tunisia by a well
prepared team that spent a successful camp in England
playing with the English National team propagating for
the 2012 Olympic Game. Egypt. The Egyptian youth team
played also against Kuwait first team three matches and
three matches against the Indian National team. “We need
to compete for the World Championship slot here in
Tunisia but we know well that the competition will be so
strong specially from the north African teams.” Said the
Egyptian coach Emad Nawar.
With their star studded team the last three competitions
runner up Tunisia searches for a new continental victory
through a new generation of players who trained well
last month after a successful camp in Italy where they
played the Italian national team and then they
participated in the friendship tournament which showed 4
strong matches.
 Algeria
prepared through a friendly tournament in Kelibia,
Tunisia where they won one match and lost three. The
competition showed participation of five teams; Tunisia
A and B teams, Algeria, Kazakhstan and Hungary. Algeria
Head coach Hadj Belgacem is satisfied with the
preparation and the standard of the players. “With our
successful preparation program we need to compete for
the African slot in the World Championship. We had a
long term preparations through collection of the players
weekly. We had many experienced players like Billal
Soualem and Mesaaoud Debbih who have international
experience before with the Youth teams and played in the
2005 World youth championship.
South Africa had a good preparation since 3 month in
local camps that helped the players to enter the
competition atmosphere. The head coach Mabeka Bedi led
the team’s preparation which was concentrated in the
last month for the competition. “Now we are in good
performance to play in this competition and we hope to
win to get the ticket for the World Championship.” He
said.
The 2004 Champions Morocco is searching for a new
victory to be added to the only achievement in this age
category. They had a 10 days camp in Russia playing 6
matches against the Russian youth team and another
tournament in Portugal with Spain, France and Portugal.
“We want to produce another successful generation for
Morocco first team like we did in 2004. I think this
will be the strongest ever competition with all the
continental big forces” Said Morocco coach Mohamed
Abdallaoui.
Cameroon wants to put their names on the golden list of
this competition like they did in the senior African
competitions. They came with a new team that was
preparing for 6 months as they played as a separate team
in the local league and also in Cameroon cup. They also
played any friendly matches with the first National
team.
Botswana collected a team two weeks before the
competition to get experience at the continental level
which will be useful in the coming years to provide more
players to the first National team.
Pools
Pool A
South Africa
Tunisia
Algeria
Cameroon
Pool B
Egypt
Morocco
Benin
Botswana
By Tarek Al Adwar from Tunis, Tunisia
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