Tuesday February 1, 2005

Defense, Saints tug it out today as Coffee look to steady ship

The eagerly awaited clash between Saint George and Defense Force takes place today at the Addis Ababa stadium, as the inconsistent Ethiopian Coffee who lead the table take on Trans Ethiopia in Adigrat stadium.

The veteran club Saint George under Serbian coach Mutto entertain Defense for their first-ever league clash between both clubs in the new premier league format as the latter was out of the topflight for almost more than a decade before it secured promotion last season. The encounter between both clubs was the biggest derby that lasted more than three decades before Ethiopian Coffee became one of strong forces in the country’s football.

Defense, who have the most celebrated coach in the country in the person of Asrat Haile, has one of the most organized squads made up mostly former Coffee players look strong to register the first win in the new premier league format of the two clubs’ long forgotten derby.

Having the 2004 CECAFA Cup Ethiopian player of the tournament Anteneh Alamerew in the heart of the midfield, Defense is expected to put up a highly determined fight for a win that could see them move to the top of the table should Coffee lose in Mekele to Trans Ethiopia.

The Saints have been in good form since the premier league resumed after its six weeks interruption registering two wins and a draw from its three matches. If all goes well the Saints, who have been a force in Ethiopian football for many years, are favorite to take all three points which will take them top of the table as well. So both teams have a lot to play for.

Coffee, leaders of the premier league on 17 points, travel to Mekele, Tigray region to take on the team that finished third last season Trans who are coached by Tesgaye Kidanemariam at the club’s new venue Adigrat.

Coffee’s current form has raised concern amongst its supporters who are keen on having the championship title this season after it eluded them last year after a poor form in the second half of the season. After collecting only five points from a possible 12, including a disappointing 1-0 home defeat in the hands of Harar Brewery, the strong Coffee supporters are already started calling for the head of their new coach Abraham Teklehaimanot.

Trans Ethiopia who are expected to be one of the teams to be relegated following the resignation of head coach Gebremedin Haile, are showing tremendous progress losing only two matches out of the eight so far played. Tesgaye disproved many of the club supporters and football followers alike to hang around the premier league heavy weights determined to go one step further than last season third place accomplishment.

Haile set    for another clash with Tergat

It could be another showdown between Haile Gebrselassie and marathon record holder Paul Tergat of Kenya in this year’s London Marathon since that infamous encounter in the 10,000m final in Sydney five years ago and their first road meeting two years ago in the same venue.

The former four-time world and double 10,000m champion

announced that subject to a fitness test over the Half Marathon distance at the end of this month, he will join the start-list for the Flora London Marathon on April 17.

Tergat beat Haile to third for the first time at the 2002 London Marathon with USA’s Khalid Khannouchi winning in a World record of 2:05:38. Haile, considered as Ethiopian Emperor of running in his first-ever marathon race, clocked a 2:06:35 national record.

This time round Haile would face strong challenge from an array of talents including the 2004 Olympic champion Stefano Baldini, 2003 World gold medalist Jaouad Gharib and the reigning London champion Evans Rutto.

In another news, Kenenisa Bekele’s younger brother Tariku Bekele won the annual Spain Algoibar Cross Country competition ahead of fellow countryman Maregu Zewde.

In this 10,000m cross country competition Tariku crossed the line in 32:02 to claim the title of the 62nd annual event while Maregu in hot pursuit of the rising star reached home one second later followed by Tanzania’s Fabiano Josef. Worku Bado another Ethiopian came in fourth in 32:19 while Spanish John Carlos Delol finished fifth with Abebe Dinkessa sixth.

London men’s elite field’s fastest times

Paul Tergat (KEN) 2:04:55

Sammy Korir (KEN) 2:04:56

Khalid Khannouchi (USA) 2:05:38

Evans Rutto (KEN) 2:05:50

Daniel Njenga (KEN) 2:06:16

Haile Gebrselassie (ETH) 2:06:35

Antonio Pinto (POR) 2:06:36

Abdelkader el Mouaziz (MAR) 2:06:46

Jaouad Gharib (MAR) 2:07:02

Stefano Baldini (ITA) 2:07:29

Antonio Peña (ESP) 2:07:34

Gezahegne Abera (ETH) 2:07:54

Joseph Ngolepus (KEN) 2:07:57

John Brown (GBR) 2:09:44

Lee Troop (AUS) 2:09:49

Meb Keflezighi (USA) 2:09:53

John Yuda (TAN) 2:10:13

Banks qualify for Confed Cup next round

Ethiopia Banks have qualified for the next round of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Confederation Cup without even kicking a ball after their Kenyan opponents Chemelil withdrew.

Both teams were scheduled to play the first leg of the preliminary round on Sunday January 30, as Africa’s two club competitions the Champions League and Confederation Cup kicked off Friday.

Coached by the former national team and Saint George striker Gebremedin Haile, the defending Ethiopian knockout champions have collected star players from different clubs so that their squad could make some progress in its first-ever continental involvement.

Backed by the four major state- and private-owned financial institutions: Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, Awash Bank, Dashen Bank and Nib International Bank, the club will journey to Cairo to face Arab Contractors in the first round in the first week of March.

Arab Contractors who had been under the shadow of Egyptian giants Zamalek, Al-Ahly and Ismailia for the last decade are on the reviving trend.

Currently 6th in the Ethiopian premier league with 13 points, Banks seem in good form especially after two consecutive draws against Ethiopian Coffee and Saint George recently.

Awasa Kenema, the reigning premier league champions played their first leg African Champions League encounter against Sudanese champion Al-Hilal, who last year defeated Saint George in Addis Ababa, yesterday. They left for Khartoum days earlier to acclimatize. The result of the encounter was not known at the time of going to print.

In related news, CAF announced that the winner of the 2005

African Champions League will play in FIFA’s Club World Championships. The winner of the November’s Champions League final will go to Japan in December to represent Africa against their counterparts from the five other continents.

The final of the Champions League has been brought forward by a month to allow Africa’s representative time to prepare for the tournament in Japan.

The Champions League will play three knockout rounds before the last eight clubs go into a league competition, starting in June, while there will be four knockout rounds in the Confederation Cup before whittling its entrants down to eight, who then also compete in a league competition, which starts in August.

EFF appoint Abraham as standby national team coach

The Ethiopian Football Federation [EFF] has temporarily appointed Abraham Teklehaimanot as coach of the national team to prepare them for the highly publicized friendly match against a team of world football stars expected in the country to join in the 60th birthday celebration of reggae icon Bob Marley.

Abraham, who is currently coach of Ethiopian Coffee, the leaders of the premier league, received the national duty call from the EFF urging him to set up a strong side that could challenge the world stars in encounter that will take place at the Addis Ababa stadium.

With a cup winning side at his disposal, the former Guna Trading head coach simply has less work to do as all he needs do is bring them together for some more teamwork, especially in defensive tactical play so that the invited world stars or those that have confirmed their may not have the whole ninety minutes in comfort.

The good news, apart from having a young team, is the no pressure atmosphere, which possibly might help our boys to their future destiny in football.

With a one-month coaching course in Brazil a couple of years ago, more than half a dozen years of experience as premier league coach and having withstood any pressure from the hot-blooded Coffee supporters, coach Abraham seems to be the right choice for the position abandoned by the country’s all-time best national team coach Asrat Haile, who resigned after winning the 2004 CECAFA Cup. Asrat also took the post temporarily.

Though it is not yet known whether stars like Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, Samuel Eto’o, Ronaldinho and others will turn up for the match, but coach Abraham may better expect a squad of professionals ready to display their talents to the Ethiopian football followers who have started dreaming and saying, “Let me watch Ronaldinho and Zidane today and die tomorrow smiling.”

U-17 crash out of African Championship

The Ghanaian U-17 coach David Danson three weeks ago told Athena Sports that his team would crush their Ethiopian counterpart 4-0 in the second leg in Accra. At the time many took it as a bluff coming from a coach whose team conceded two late goals in seven minutes for a 2-1 defeat in Addis Ababa.

However, last weekend in Ghana’s biggest town Kumasi, the head coach’s words almost turned out a hundred percent true. At the final whistle in Kumasi it was the Ghanaian U-17 team that made it to the final of the African U-17 Championship scheduled for the Gambia from May 7-21, after a 3-0 defeat of Ethiopia.

The youthful Ethiopian side led by two members of the Normalization Committee bowed out after a 4-2 aggregate despite coach Wondemagne Kebede’s vow not to surrender easily even though the match was in Kumasi and against one of the continent’s best U-17 sides with tremendous record at the international level.

The Starlets scored their first goal in the 14th minute through Jonathan Quartey from a 30-metre free kick, but the goal didn’t rattle the Ethiopians who kept their composure and made series of attacks in search of the equalizer but were kept at bay by the strong Ghanaian defense.

Both teams resumed the second half strongly but it was the Starlets who were on top and scored their second goal in the 64th minute through a penalty that was expertly taken by Quartey after Opoku Agyemang who attempted to score was tripped in the box.

The “steaming” Ethiopian players continued to pile on the pressure for a goal but Agyemang who had been the thorn in their defense made amends for his near misses to score a solo goal against the run of play in the 72nd minute for Ghana’s third.

Ethiopia refused to lay low and in the 86th minute, Alex Tesema missed a glorious chance while skipper Tesfaye Belete also hit the woodwork two minutes later to deny them a consolation goal.

Because of their performance after a short preparation many have suggested that the Ethiopian Football Federation should keep Wondemagne boys together longer as it might help the country’s U-20 national team as well as the senior team in the future. Those same people also commented on the delegates that accompanied the team to Ghana asking why two Normalization Committee members, Shiferaw Eshetu and Araya Tesfaye, were allowed to fly with the team despite the new leadership goal of advocating fairness and transparency.

Another big name team to make it to the finals in the Gambia is two-time world champions and twice silver medallist Nigeria, who trashed Angola 6-1 on aggregate after a 3-0 victory in Abeokuta, while fellow west African the Ivory Coast whose football is on the insurgent also qualified after defeating Morocco 3-0 on aggregate.

Other qualifiers to join host the Gambia at the African U-17 Championship for a chance to represent the continent at World championship later this year are Mali, South Africa, and Burkina Faso. Tanzania who defeated Zimbabwe 4-1 on aggregate have been disqualified from the championship after fielding and overage player.

Nurdin Bakari played against Rwanda and Zambia in the qualifying rounds of the competition despite being over the age limit.

The president of the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) Leodegar Tenga confirmed on Friday that CAF has also banned the country from all youth tournaments for two years.

The defensive midfielder, who plays for Simba, is shown on his club’s records as having been born in 1983 while TFF documents sent to CAF say that he is five years younger.

Bakari’s name was included on Simba’s list for the 2004 Champions League and CAF discovered the discrepancy after cross-checking with the under-17 list sent to them by the TFF.

Meanwhile, Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco and Benin have qualified to represent Africa in the FIFA World Youth U-21 Championship final schedule to take place in the Netherlands in June this year. Three of the four semifinalists at the African U-20 Championship, which ended Saturday, January 29, will carry the hopes of the continent due to their past experiences at this level while Benin, who are making it to their first-ever FIFA competition, will be the underdogs.

African U-17 second round results

Morocco 0-2 Côte d’Ivoire, Côte d’Ivoire 1-0 Morocco; Ethiopia 2-1 Ghana, Ghana 3-0 Ethiopia; South Africa 5-0 Sudan, Sudan 0-3 South Africa; Tanzania 3-1 Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe 0-1 Tanzania; Mali 3-0 Central Africa, Central Africa 1-1 Mali; Angola 1-3 Nigeria, Nigeria 3-0 Angola; Burundi 2-0 Burkina Faso, Burkina Faso 5-1 Burundi