Ethiopian Football has great potential, says Coach Tom Saintfiet

Coach of the national team, Tom Saintfiet says Ethiopia might not be immediately associated with football, but the country has massive potential to develop in the game. The names of Olympic gold medal-winning athletes like Abebe Bikila, Haile Gebreselassie and Kenenisa Bekele might enjoy worldwide recognition and represent sporting success for the east African nation but the sport Ethiopians most passionately follow is the global game.

“Of course the sport that Ethiopia is most famous for is athletics, but football is most definitely the number one here,” said the ambitious 38-year-old Belgian, who has taken on a short-term contract and arrived in Addis Ababa just ten days before the CAF Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against Nigeria at the start of the summer.

A long-time player and well-travelled coach, Saintfiet almost steered his new side to a shock win as the Walaya Antelopes conceded just three minutes from time to play out a 2-2 draw with Nigeria, a result that was still a massive fillip for Ethiopia.

“It really is a football country, with a strong league that is professional, and passionate supporters. I watched a number of league games and the crowds at several matches were over 30,000. They have foreign players and foreign coaches and enormous potential,” enthused Saintfiet, whose past assignments have included the national coaching job in Namibia and Zimbabwe.

Buoyed by Nigeria draw
The draw with the highly fancied Nigerians has given Saintfiet a massive boost, but he has two more matches to come against Guinea and Madagascar before a decision is made on whether he will stay in the job. “It was a very strange feeling after the draw because before the game if you had offered anybody in Ethiopia a draw with Nigeria, they would have gladly accepted it, but after the game we all felt down because we knew how close we had come to beating one of the best teams in Africa,” said Saintfiet. “But the next day on the streets everyone was so proud of the result. We want now to take that one step further and do well in the next matches.”

With Ethiopia’s league season over at the end of June, Saintfiet has plans to take his squad to Namibia for extensive training in August to keep them in shape for the meeting with group leaders Guinea in Conakry in early September in their next Nations Cup qualifier. The Guineans are on ten points, while Nigeria are pushing hard on seven. Ethiopia have four, three of which came from a 1-0 victory at group bottom-dwellers Madagascar, who have a single point from an unlikely draw with Guinea. “We don’t have to be afraid of Guinea if we are well prepared. If we are physically ready, we’ll be able to get another good result,” said Saintfiet about the match at the start of September.

Ethiopia finish their 2012 CAF Africa Cup of Nations campaign at home to Madagascar, by which time the coach says a decision will be made on his future. “The federation will then be aware of what I can do for them and I will have an idea of how far we can go in the future,” he said. “But my gut feeling is that Ethiopia should again be challenging and qualifying for future finals. Realistically there is no chance of now making the 2012 finals but why not the 2013 finals? We are also looking forward to the 2014 FIFA World Cup draw and the chance to get into the group competition,” he said about next week’s Preliminary Draw.

“Ethiopia is one of the founder nations in African football and they played in each of the first seven final tournaments. They were champions in 1962, but they haven’t been to the Nations Cup finals since 1982. For a country with this size and potential, that is something that must be changed,” Saintfiet insisted.

Source: FIFA.com