FRANCE 98 – General Media News Template

Zoubeir Beya may be the pick of the Tunisia football crop, but he could have missed the World Cup following child-like tantrums during the 1998 African Nations Cup.

Beya was taken off in the opening group match against Ghana after becoming an anonymous figure and when substituted against the Democratic Republic of Congo because of an equally ineffective show, he stormed off. Dropped for the final pool match with Togo, the diminutive midfielder with German second division club Freiburg was brought on for the second half of the quarter-final with hosts Burkina Faso.

Zoubeir, who turns 26 this month, made an immediate impact, sending accurate passes through minute defensive gaps to create scoring chances for strikers starved until his arrival. This was the old Beya, who first sprang to prominence at the 1996 African Nations Cup in South Africa where no-hopers Tunisia finished second behind the hosts.

Before moving to Freiburg, and joining national team striker Mehdi Ben Slimane, Beya was the midfield pivot of the highly successful Etoile du Sahel club. He helped Etoile from the eastern coastal town of Sousse win the 1995 African Football Confederation (CAF) Cup and finish runners-up to Kawkab Marrakech of Morocco the following year.

“We could not be in a tougher group,” he says of Group G matches against England, Colombia and Romania. “However, we go into the World Cup without any complexes.”