Players Rartings

By Zecharias Zelalem –

In what was one of the worst days in the history of Ethiopian football, the Walyas were on the receiving end of an absolute pummeling by the marauding Algerians. This 7-1 result has sucked the wind out of Ethiopia’s 2017 AFCON qualifying aspirations and Coach Yohannes Sahle will only be able to look back on a campaign that started somewhat promisingly, and went horribly wrong in a setting so often the scene of Ethiopian football collapse, Blida Stadium.

We at Ethiosports analysed individual performances of the losing team and have compiled a list of player ratings for the Ethiopian players involved.

  1. Tariku Getnet 2/10

The Dedebit keeper was left woefully exposed by his defense and made a number of saves in the first half that kept the score at a respectable 2-0, but in the second half, his ill judgment and blunders cost the team dearly. Abel Mamo’s odds of winning the number 1 jersey have surged.

  1. Alula Girma 1.5/10

Alula Girma’s worst international showing was long touted to be his performances in the 2-1 defeat to Algeria in 2014 that left him out of the national team for a while. But in Blida, he may have outdone himself. An extremely careless challenge resulted in a penalty, and he was constantly left exposed at the back.

  1. Yared Baye 1/10

Torn to shreds on too many occasions, he was left a sitting duck for the likes of Brahimi and Feghouli. A liability in a makeshift defense, Ethiopia was unable to cope with the absences of Saladin Bargecho and Walid Atta.

  1. Aschalew Tamene 3/10

From Ethiopia’s extremely shaky back four, Aschalew exhibited much more confidence on the ball and attempts at creating forays forward. But just like the rest of the team, his abilities faded in the second half and couldn’t fare much better than his teammates during the onslaught.

  1. Tekalign Dejene 2/10

He was pulled out of position countless times. The occasion was just too much for him and his getting nutmegged capped off his horror showing at left back. Zecharias Tuji, Abebaw Butako and Mehari Mena are waiting in the wings.

  1. Gathuoch Panom 4/10

A normally reliable presence in the Ethiopian midfield, he was left in a trance with the crisp passing of the Algerians. His stamina and fighting ability left him in the second half and he was lazily caught failing to back track on too many occasions. Still, he popped up with a brilliant through ball that resulted in Ethiopia’s consolation goal.

 

  1. Asrat Megersa 2/10

The Dashen Beer midfielder will hope to forget the day he was first played as captain of the Ethiopian national team. Besides being a shredded umbrella unable to provide any protection whatsoever for the Ethiopian back four, he gave possession away on too many occasions. He was handed the armband and played his worst game in a national team jersey.

  1. Behailu Assefa 3.5/10

Completely absent and failed to provide any attacking threat down his flank in a first half that despite the somewhat respectable score line, saw Ethiopia restricted to the confines of their own half for nearly the entirety of the 45 minutes. He was withdrawn at half time. 

  1. Ramkel Lok 1/10

Handed the number 10 jersey, he was unable to live to the aura of his jersey number and let alone provide playmaking options, he was rarely seen playing in his position. In the first half he provided defensive cover several times, but offered nothing in terms of service or a serious push forward. Another poor performance in the colours of his country will have people questioning his status as a national team starter. 

  1. Shemeles Bekele 4/10

So often the sparkplug in the Ethiopian attack and a source of inspiration, he was given no room to operate, marshalled out of the midfield and given no breathing space whatsoever. One on one with the keeper, he was uncharacteristically caught for pace and fumbled his side’s best goal scoring chance of the first half. A couple glimpses of his skill were seen, but for the most part, any attempt to maneuver past his markers resulted in his giving possession away to the opposition. 

  1. Getaneh Kebede 5.5/10

Wasted a perfectly good set piece opportunity and with plenty of Ethiopian bodies pushing forward resulted in an Algerian counterattack and second goal. Was starved of service the entire match and he was left all alone in attack. However, he managed to get one scoring opportunity which he coolly finished.

Substitutes

  1. Dawit Fekadu 6/10

With his team collapsing in the second half, he was brought on and made three or four crucial interceptions leading to rare Ethiopian attacks. One of those interceptions led to Getaneh’s goal. Despite being a center forward, he was restricted to playing on the wing but did fairly well

  1. Tadele Mengesha */10

He was brought on in the second half.

  1. Elias Mamo */10

Came on when it was too late to matter.

Note: Zecharias Zelalem, who uses the pen name Zecharias Etyopia, is a Montreal (Canada)-based contributor to Ethiosports.com. He can be reached via his Facebook page.

27 thoughts on “Ethiopia vs Algeria: Ethiopian players’ ratings

  1. If you rehire Mr Bishawu everyone would be ready to fire him again because he did not win fast enough! Get a life. This is a game! It takes at least 3 years to develop a competitive team . Coach Sahle has not coached this team a year yet. Just wait and you will see how great the National team will be! Stop whining and sit back and observe the building of a world soccer power house.

  2. Mr jebessa ? How big is oromos genfo ? Is that AS big AS your mothers ass ? Yes ? Our country don’t need such bi ass animals. Believe me ! We need big ass Like your mother’s ? ….only ???? dogie style ! Did you get me ? Tinb !

  3. ይሄንን የኣሁኑን ኣሠልጣኝ ነቅለው ሌላ ከኣላመጡ ይህን ቡድን ደግም ኣላየውም። በቃኝ።

  4. To EthioSupporter:
    Asrat’s low grade is a result of the number of giveaways (I counted at least six) and the fact that the Algerians were allowed to walk in to our midfield so easily with little opposition from Asrat or Gatoch. His job is to prevent the opposition from operating freely in the midfield but Asrat was being toyed with at one point.

    Shemeles’ slightly higher grade was for his engineering the few attacks Ethiopia did manage to get, but he missed an easy chance and was also robbed of the ball on too many occasions.

    As for the coach, this article is specifically a player ratings article. There is no mention of a coach in these type of articles. I have plenty of opinionated articles focusing on the coach, you can just scroll through this website and you will come across them. Besides, I am halfway through another article detailing why Coach Yohannes must be fired, I’m waiting for the results of tomorrow’s game to complete it. You will see it published here within the next day or two.

  5. Please think twice, to play tomorrow game with algeria. ……..
    Defense. ……sacks. …please place a good defense. …and attackers. …
    .
    Please, don’t make me cry like a girl. ..please

  6. Please think twice, to play tomorrow game with algeria. ……..
    Defense. ……sacks. …please place a good defense. …and attackers. …
    .
    Please, don’t make me cry like a girl. ..please

  7. Dear Writer,

    Your analysis matches a lot of what I saw but two ratings፡

    1. Asrat was the best player for walya on this day in my opinion. He and Getaneh are the only players who looked like professionals against Algeria.

    2. Shimelis looked like a 2/10 most of the game. Although he is technically gifted he is a midfield player who contributes almost nothing to winning the ball back. He also lost the ball easily several times

    Also for your future articles i hope you will look at tactics and critique the coaching. The poor marking and defensive shape are a sign the coaches didnt get the job done in camp.

    Is it too soon for a “Bring Gash Sewnet Back” campaign? Lol
    Cheers

  8. They should not have fired Sewenet Bishaw. After helping the team qualify for African cup, the authorities unrealistically demanded more from him, and subsequently let him go. This is not the way it works, and clearly he would have done much better than this embarrassing result. Get Bishaw back and give him chance and enough time to rebuild the team.

  9. To the commentator named Medhanalem Awajo:
    Thanks for your feedback. I have taken into consideration the fact that Tariku made several key saves. I even mentioned it in the article. However, a keeper that gets a ranking of 3 or 4 out of 10 is a keeper that made two or three costly errors costing his team the game. Despite Tariku’s save, he made four or five costly errors, including some ridiculous blunders that resulted in the easy Brahimi goal and the long range strike which was straight at him and somehow managed to go through his hands. Our keeper’s errors not only costed us the game, it costed us our dignity. And besides, no goalkeeper in the history of football that nearly conceded ten goals in a single match has ever gotten his two or three saves taken into consideration. He was scored on, SEVEN TIMES.

  10. Very humiliating defeat indeed. The key is Ethiopians need to collect the pieces and move on. It puzzles me why small nations like Cape Verde seem to produce great soccer athletes and team and we, 100 million of us, can’t. When I heard the news first (couldn’t watch live and happy I didn’t), I was like, did they play for a couple of days or what? Lol. This could be in 90 minutes.

    We need a self-assessment and an autopsy why our soccer seems to be stuck in the past. We were very happy by the progress Coach Sewinet made and we seem to have gone back by several steps.

    A time for all to reflect and figure what’s going on here?

  11. HI!PLEASE COME TO MS SEWUNET BISHAW OTHERWISE WE CONTINUE TO BE BEATEN BY EVERY NATION.PLEASE CHANGE YOUR WAY OF THIKING DONOT BLEAM ANY NATION OK?

  12. I am very unhappy, our population is close to 100milon, how can we can’t find a better defender,attacker etc. I will blame all of us for this disappointing result.
    I believe they need good advice regarding that will prepare them to be mentally fit.
    Maybe they lack of confidence to play with big club players .
    But, what is our chance to qualify for afcon? What we should do to be competitive on world soccer? This should be our questions

  13. I am very unhappy, our population is close to 100milon, how can we can’t find a better defender,attacker etc. I will blame all of us for this disappointing result.
    I believe they need good advice regarding that will prepare them to be mentally fit.
    Maybe they lack of confidence to play with big club players .
    But, what is our chance to qualify for afcon? What we should do to be competitive on world soccer? This should be our questions

  14. Zekarias Zelalem,

    Wow I think you got it all wrong with the player ratings.

    Particularly, Tariku Getnet deserves more than 2/10. He single handedly protected the box with multiple saves throughout the game. I believe he has the technical ability and stature to play outside the country. Anyways a
    I don’t know the guy nor is be paying me to say this.

    On the other hand, we have no defense that can properly play their position or not foul. Shemeles Bekele 4/10 OK but he played very poorly. For some reason he plays well for club but national team he seems to miss to many 1 on 1 goals with the keeper….remember African cup of nation miss. I think he does to much to be fancy trying to be fancy.

    All I got to say, pls guys stop with this oromo and amahara garbage it’s annoying we are talking about a country here.

  15. Dear jebesa,

    You oromos eat more injera than amharas.
    We wollo amhara don’t even have any food, so shut up!!!! You oromos should be happy because every big industry and big project was built in shewa the last 100 years so oromia has unfair benefit. Stop biitching!!!

    By the way, you complain about percentage but 90% of ethiopian track running team is oromo but you guys only 30%…. Is that fair??????

  16. Akkam bulte!
    Ethiopia team need more oromo players because we are strong from eating genfo

    We are 35% of ethiopia but only 5% ot football teams. Why?

    The injera belita tigres and amara are too skinny to play football

    Oromo first!
    Galaatomi

  17. The coach is well qualified and very experienced.
    He grew up around JanMeda in Addis and has played for St. George, and for Ethiopia from the youth team to the national team. While in the US, he coached Ethipian teams in the US, studied Sport and came back to Ethiopia to coach our U-17 national team and one of the top teams in the Ethiopian Premier League, Dedebit.
    Show me one other Ethioian who has better qualification for the job.

  18. May be Mr Sewunet Bishawu is z solution ,good couch but not from Tigrian ethinic group,

  19. I have been saying for long time that we Ethiopians need to spend 6hrs in the gym to compute with the world.

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