Squad to face Benin (Away Match)

I sometimes the criticism that this man copes with is totally unwarranted and baseless.
Ze’ calanga and Maurito can’t be called due to the fact both players are clubless and not just that, they are unfit and they haven’t even had pre-season.
Mantorras, he is not even making the bench at benfica, why should he be called to such a difficult game? Besides that he is following a specific exercise that he is not kicking a ball yet.
Marco Airosa and Rui Marques, those are tactical changes that he has a coach felt he had to make and I guess he has to take a responsability if it backfires on him. However my humble opinion is that Rui Marques plays ok but he is not a super player, to add to that he is in the wrong side of 30 therefore offering no long term solution, however if I had a choice between Jamba and Rui Marques the later wil always get my vote as the former is simply awful and crap.

I the first line I meant to say that: I sometimes think that the criticism…sorry for the grammar mistakes that follows thereafter.
By the way kiko, what hapened tn Kivuvu? Isn’t this the month that he has to make up his mind?
Perhaps as an optional striker they could’ve made use of Diangi, but I think the rationale is that Love and Fofana are both physical players who are both battle-hardened and understand the “african” condition, as playing in Europe is totally different to playing in the african continent, and this is for obvious reasons.

Pedro,

I dont think Ze Kalanga is clubless. He was on loan at Boavista last season (he had a good season) but he has now returned to Dinamo Bucharest. His name is still in the Dinamo squad in their official site, so Im guessing that he is training at least.

I didnt expect him to call Mantorras, but I expected him to finally call up Djalma Braune or Stelvio Cruz. They have been consistent for their clubs and certainly deserve a call up.

I think Kivuvu will make that decision pretty soon and I fear that it will be based on Angola’s results in these important matches. I saw a video of him play and I have to say that he looks really strong, powerful and he has a mean shot! It would be a huge loss if he chose against playing for Angola.

Posted from  United Kingdom

Hey kiko,
The story about Ze-calanga is that albeit he may be “registered” as a Dynamo player he is in fact in Luanda and he has been there for quite sometime.
Djalma has just been transfered to Benfica so he is definately a good prospect.
He in fact just played for Angola in the recent friendly against Tunisia, I can’t say what is the reason he was not chosen for the game against Benin but I think the rationale is that it is a game of extreme importance and you dont want to blood players in this types of games instead one needs the battle-hardened generals who know the conditions and know what is it that it take to win away in the african continent.
With Selvio the situation is a bit more complicated as he, just as recent as the recent European u-21 championship he was capped by Portugal.
Therefore there has to be an application from him to FIFA to advocate his willingness to want to play for Angola and right now he is unwilling to do so as he is undecided.

Posted from  Germany

On the topic of Kivuvu, he has about 10 days to lodge his application with FIFA, as their regulations clearly stipulates it must be done before the player’s 21st birthday.
I am not so sure of this but Kivuvu’s pre-requisite to want to play for Angola was if in fact he didnt make the Dutch olympic team he will play for Angola and that he didnt, therefore I don’t forsee any actual problem as far as that is concerned except for the fact that Angola’s interest in him may have dwindled and his application to fifa may be processed late, which I sincerely hope that is not the case.
As far as the game at the weekend is concerned, I believe we have the potential to come away with the victory and I hope that we actually do.

Posted from  Germany

Thanks for clarifying the situation on Stelvio and Djalma. And Im actually shocked with the Ze Kalanga story. Why is he not with his team after having a good season with Boavista?

The Kivuvu situation does actually worry me because of the application date. Hope that they can sort it out in time.

The game on sunday is a “must win” contest. I still dont see where the goals would come from. They just lost 2-1 to the mighty Recreativo do Libolo, and they only scored trhough a penalty. Do you see now why I worry?

Posted from  United Kingdom

I think the situation with Ze-calanga is that he lacks discipline and dedication to want to succeed at the very top.
Since the beginning of 07, I believe he was chosen merely on reputation, or more so than anything else, as he sincerely was not the same player who exploded on the qualifiers of the 06 world cup.
Him and Mendonca need to make up their minds whether they want to be footballer or “ballers”. One may add into this list Maurito as well, he has so much talent but no discipline. When he was a rising star Brum Metsu thought that he was better than Eto’o, now 7 years down the line look at the story of both players.
However as recently as the last couple of games Jamuana has been edging them in terms of O.G’s preference, so perhaps we will not miss them that much.
Just to add on my previous post, Stelvio played yesterday for Portugal u-21 against England u-21, so the chances of him playing for Angola is almost non-existent but I guess if one looks at the situation positively one could say that he still have until 2010 to make the final decision and with the array of talent that Portugal have in the trinco position, he may just opt to play for Angola.
However Stelvio and Kivuvu play at the same position, If they both opt to play for Angola it will be a great headache for the coach to have.

Posted from  Germany

I think, Santana, the new Manucho, Love, Fofana and Flavio will do just fine.

Posted from  Germany