The new players…

January 10th, 2008 | by: Magnusson |

Out of the 23 players picked by Henryk Kasperczak, eight will be at their first ACN in a few weeks. Some of them may not even have played a single time for the national team in an official game but it is somehow nice to see some fresh new faces in the squad. Here are their names: Ibrahima Sonko, Bouna Coundoul, Pape Waïgo Ndiaye, Pape Modou Sougou, Moustapha Bayal Sall, Mouhamed Adama Sarr, Pape Malick Bâ and Babacar Guèye.

Bouna Coundoul, the Colorado Rapids goalkeeper will be the first player from the MLS to play in the competition if he is alligned (sidebar, that won’t happen). He played against mali and maroc in this winter friendlies in France and has apparently given satisfaction.
Ousmane Ndoye is also a new player since he was not in the squad for a few months and hasn’t been in an ACN since 2004 but the kid is back and showed Kasperczak all of his class when we beat Cote d’Ivoire last summer.

Someone who must be relieved and happy to be in the team is Babacar Guèye. The Metz player who did not participate at the 2006 ACN because he was deemed too young by the staff despitre having played and scored multiple times during the qualifying matches. He was replaced at the time by Issa Ba and Djiono Djiba. It made sense at the time but now that Bab’s is not having the best of years with metz, Kaspi calls him and makes him one of his choices as a striker, this will calm the frustration of someone who litterally bleeds the national colors.

One of the cases that made the senegalese press go nuts litterally was the one of Souleymane Diawara who after 14 months without being called up for being drunk and partying in 2006, he was expelled from the selection and never called up since. After a few phone calls, everything went back to normal but the press doesn’t know the influence this party boy will have on the team. I don’t either. The “man with the black gloves” is one of the best defenders in the Ligue 1 easily when he’s on. problem is that with him, the only games where you’tre sure he’ll be On are the ones on Canal+. Now let’s hope he stopped being childish in Charlton and finally lives up to the expectations.

Ibrahima Sonko is also someone who will have hel unleashed on him if his ACN is not the best ever. The Reading defender refused the NT many times before saying he wanted the french National Team to holla at him. The national press is used to that (Ibrahim Ba, Patrick Vieira, Patrice Evra, any of the Diarras, etc…), what they are less accustomed to is someone kinda insulting the country, saying shit like “The organization is not good enough for me to come anyways…” and stuff. So everyone went with the Oumar Dieng approach (For those who don’t know, Oumar Dieng was a famous senegalese player who played for PSG and refused the antional long enough to play for France once and be forgotten forever. He apologized on Tv saying how he would have loved to help his country in ACN and other competitions but was blinded by ambition.): We said “Good riddance.”. To see him on the team is bittersweet to me. I don’t like the guy but he’s a good player. Good enough to make me like him? I don’t think so.
Welcome to these fresh faces and good luck to them.