Why will the Senegal squad be reduced to only 21 players?

September 5th, 2008 | by: Magnusson | Comments Off

After selecting 22 players for the 5th and 6th match-days of these World Cup qualifiers, Lamine Ndiaye had to face a problem, striker Mbaye Leye was injured during a game and the national coach decided to call Hoffenheim’s Demba Ba but had to face two problems:
1. The germans didn’t know who he is since he never bothered to call them.
2. They had the right to refuse since he didn’t take the mandatory two weeks to notify the club in due time.

So Demba Ba of course couldn’t make it. Ndiaye then turned to Montpellier and Souleymane Camara. And then on wednesday, he let it slip that the player refused before saying yesterday that Souleymane Camara couldn’t come because Rolland Courbis, ex-Marseille player and current Montpellier manager made it understood that if Souleymane Camara came to the match and played against Algeria, he would lose his starting spot.
I believe Lamine Ndiaye said that becausqe he believed his little lie would just go unnoticed. Problem is, Roland Courbis is a fan of the senegalese team and follows it very closely. Just after the press conference and called by some senegalese friends of his, he called some journalists to let it be known that he had nothing to do with Souleymane not coming in for the NT:

“If Senegal calls up Souleymane Camara, there’s nothing we can do about it, we can’t say NO. The player is the only one who can refuse.”

Courbis also encouraged his colleagues to:

“take care of your own problems between you guys and don’t make me say something I haven’t. I’ve always had excellent relations with Senegal and senegalese players. I don’t want that to change.”

So the end result is, we’ll be one striker short for our next two games. And the most prolific we’ve ever had is watching it all on his TV screen.