Tag: Nabil Maaloul

Team Melli arrives in Tunis

Iran’s Team Melli landed in Tunis today ahead of the friendly international match against the Tunisian National Football team on Friday 23rd march 2018.

This will be the second test for Team Melli after an easy 4-0 victory by the experimental line up last Saturday in Azadi. Queiroz is expected to field a much stronger team in FIFA day against Tunisia. All the legionnaires have will joined the squad in Tunis and then for the Algeria game in Austria,

Tunisia coach Nabil Maaloul has named four France-born players, including Leicester City defender Yohan Benalouane, in his 28-man squad for the World Cup warm-up matche against Iran.

Former France youth internationals Seifeddine Khaoui, Ellyes Skhiri and Mouez Hassen, who all pledged their futures to the Carthage Eagles this year, have been called up.

But Leicester’s Yohan Benalouane, who had previously rejected Tunisia, was a surprise inclusion for the fixtures against Iran and Costa Rica, BBC reported.

Centre-back Benalouane is a former France Under-21 international and despite opting to represent Tunisia – the country of his parents – in 2010, he refused to honor several calls to play for the North Africans.

Experienced defender Aymen Abdennour, 28, has been overlooked due to lack of playing time at French club Marseille, while star quintet of Youssef Msakni, Wahbi Khazri, Mohamed Amine Ben Amor, Ali Maaloul and Naïm Sliti is included.

Maaloul is hoping the newcomers will add to the depth of talent he can choose from ahead of the final warm-up fixture against Spain in the Russian city of Krasnodar on 9 June.

He will seek to use as many of the players as possible in friendly games as he looks to get his Carthage Eagles squad into shape before their opening 2018 World Cup match against England on 18 June.

Iran have also been drawn in Group B of the 2018 World Cup. Team Melli will open the campaign with a match against Morocco.