The Ethiopian national team kicked off their 2021 AFCON with a narrow 1-0 defeat at the hands of Cape Verde, here are some of the talking points.
👉The Earliest Team News in modern Football History?
Team News are one of the pre match rituals were fans get excited the most, it has a huge part to play in pre match hype.
Mostly Team News would came out one hour prior to kickoff, this is the so called “Professional Trend” but the Ethiopian team facing Cape Verde was officially released via the national federation official social media outlets 7 hours prior to kickoff which was a surprise to many.
Team News(Players & Expected Formations) coming early has a little to play in opponents teams preparation for games as teams prepare days before the game in a very detailed manner but a piece of Early team news as early as 7 hours prior to kickoff would lower the hype among fans so the federation should think of postponement of its timing.
👉Ethiopian Football becoming mainstream
As the Ethiopian national team were once again taking part in the prestigious continental tournament after eight years absence their was a huge public interest in the matters regarding the Ethiopian national team.
Especially yesterday Social media platforms were filled with pictures of people with the Ethiopian national team colors and Good luck messages.
This was the story 8 years ago but once again the Ethiopian Football story were once again main stream, In a country were the sentiment has significantly been on European leagues such changes of storyline are the things all the stakeholders around the football in maintaining such momentum.
👉The Training kit
“Umbro” and the Ethiopian Football Federation has been working together for the past three years and are continuing to do so.
recently “Gofere” a local sports apparel manufacturing company has been working closely with the Federation in the provision of Training and other sports shirts for the national side.
In the prematch warmup the Ethiopian national team players kit was the one worth mentioning,the special yellow training kit for the AFCON showcase Ethiopia’s Historical Heritages.
This strategy to promote Ethiopia on such globally appealing platforms is a huge step for a country blessed with so many natural and man made tourist destinations. but yet to capitalize this sector to its potential.
👉Disciplinary issues
The mediocrity in players disciplines and referring back home once again proved to be fatal when it matters the most.
Such rushed challenges and players misconducts are a frequent incidents in domestic football but are mostly not punished, so that reckless behaviour os a common thing among the squad as only two players were part of the squad playing their trade abroad.
Moving forward there must be some sort of composed mindset among players or else we may see such rushed reckless decisions play their part in the coming games.
👉Analytical Storyline
Ethiopia set up in a 4-3-3 manner but the early red card for Yared Bayeh completely disrupted their overall game plan, with midfielder Mesud Mohammed making way for defender Mingote Debebe forcing them to retreat to their own half and play in a 4-4-1 forcing wide attacking players to do relentless running up and down to make up for their numerical inferiority.
The following Analytical storylines may be explicit as Ethiopia played the entirety with 10 men but most of the issues we witnessed go deep rather than playing with 10 men.
👉Possession
-The Cape Verde national team were by far superior possession(57% to 43% in their favor) in the entirety of the game Ethiopian National team bearing in mind that the Ethiopian side played for almost 80 minutes with 10 men following Yared Bayeh’s red card.
Interestingly Ethiopia made a total of 387 passes with 78.3% success rate in the entire 90 minutes of which 141(36.1%) were made in opponent half. In addition, only 70 (18%) of the passes were made inside the attacking third.
Passes made in the offensive third didn’t only decrease in volume but also the quality of passes drastically decrease from 78.29% on their own to 52.85% in the last third this would also provide a glimpse to the Ethiopian way of playing possession football.
Ethiopia entered the final third 48 times with them being successful only 14 times to enter opponent penality box. Meanwhile Cape Verde entering 67 times with 39 of them entering in to Ethiopia’s penality box.
Aschalew Tamen made 49 passes (the highest) while the front three Abubeker Nasser , Getaneh Kebede and Amanuel G/Micheal made (19+14+16=49) passes all together.
Also, the team lost possession 48 times (Cape Verde lost only 11 times) in their own defensive third,
The Ethiopian footballing Mantra of silky possession football has long been labeled as Possession for the sake of Possession, Possession without Progression is nothing and also if we were to build out from the back and committed so many errors with some how moderate pressure we can also question our way of building from the back and also the above mentioned data’s once again can be brought in to the table regarding the way we perceive Possession.
– Duels & Crosses, Defensive issues
Their were 67 1v1 duels with Ethiopia winning 46.3%, regarding aerial duels from the 18 moments in the entire 90 minutes Ethiopia won only 33.3% with Cape Verde wining the majority with 66.7%.
Cape Verde created 22 open play crossing opportunities while Ethiopia only created 4 opportunities with 25% success.
The Ethiopian team regained possession 54 times with the highest proportion of 30 coming in the defensive third with 21 and 3 coming in the Midfield area and higher up the pitch respectively.
It is a bold reality that Ethiopians are off less physique than their most African counterpart so the proportion of Ethiopians coming out in top in some 1v1 duels is likely so they should be thinking of having control of the game to decrease the happening of such contests, but they were lacking that control as Cape Verde were frequently creating such situation and taking to their advantage.
Crossing is the other issue the team should direly address as long balls and crosses are believed as a means of escaping pressure not as an offensive tool.
