The News: Demba Ba was again left out of Senegal’s 23-man World Cup squad on Thursday for next week’s qualifier against Uganda as coach Alain Giresse continued to pick only players who regularly feature for their clubs.
Striker Ba has struggled to win a regular place in Chelsea’s team since joining the Londoners from Newcastle United in January.
He was also omitted for two World Cup qualifiers in June.
Girondins Bordeaux forward Henri Saviet, a former French junior international, is likely to make his senior debut along with Nantes defender Issa Cissokho whose younger brother Aly is a French international and recently moved to Liverpool.
Ba’s former strike partner at Newcastle United, Papiss Cisse, misses out because of suspension.
Frenchman Giresse told a Dakar news conference he would continue the policy of only selecting footballers who were “competitive and playing at their clubs”.
Senegal must avoid defeat to clinch top spot in Group J and advance to the final phase of Africa’s qualifiers for next year’s World Cup.
The September 7 match is being played in neutral Morocco because Senegal have a ban on home matches.
The Views: The ‘sweet’and passionate game of football has become so much of a global panacea for friendship and goodwill as much as a ‘drug’ to incense hostilities. But the thoughts here are usually attributed to the interplay of the football administrative offices and officials largely in contexts where a lot of money, prestige, influence, economy, and political power can be demonstrable. But it is also known that where this happens with local clubs and national teams or rather domestic relationships that ‘kick off’ the game, a lot of these influences play out to mask what the ego vaunts.
Perhaps that is not the case with Demba Ba. But it becomes examinable when a club of such standing as Chelsea makes a move to acquire him for about £7m (if that is appropriate valuation for his services) for his demonstrable abilities on arguably the greatest league in the world but his country’s coach does not think it fit for him to don his national colours towards the march for the world cup then questions must be asked.
From reports, Frenchman Giresse had told a Dakar news conference he would continue the policy of only selecting footballers who were “competitive and playing at their clubs”.
It would therefore seem that Demba’s major challenge for inclusion is that he needs to find a way to ‘whip’ the Special One (Jose Mourinho) and let him understand that he should have regular play in the first team even though he is one of the least paid footballers in the squad. Perhaps a word of advice to Demba is to seek the help of a village magician to ‘cripple’ all Demba’s attack minded team mates so that he can have a regular place in the Chelsea first team and get Giresse to call him up.
While one is not making a spectacular claim for Demba, the case of Italian, Paulo Rossi who came from prison and didn’t do well in the preliminary games but single-handedly won theworld cup for Italy here is a reference point. I wonder why the Italian coach then had to stick with someone who just left prison and didn’t as much as have a football club where he was displaying fantastic skills before the world cup. Experience is the best teacher but you don’t necessarily have to experience all yourself!
