HOW I SPIED OUT ETHIOPIA NATIONAL TEAM IN 45 MINUTES – Get the Report

 May be ‘spying’ isn’t the right word, but it’s so easy to find out almost anything about any national team now-a-days. I didn’t have to sneak into Addis Ababa to watch Walia Antelopes play. All I did was to log on to the Internet, watch some of their recent videos, read articles and various commentaries about the team. And using a simple research analysis method called – SWOT, I was able to find out the current form and make up of Ethiopia National team. Read the report:

Team List

First, let me give you the list of likely players that will file out against Nigeria in Addis Ababa on October 13, 2013 – for the first leg 2014 world cup, African play offs:

Goal Keeper:  J.Tassew. Defense: D.Debebe, B. Abebaw, A.Haliu, B. Elias. Midfield: A. Megersa, M.Beyene, G. Adane. Attack: S. Bekele, G.Kebede, S.Ahmed. Substitutes: S.Banch, B. Salahaon, Y. Zinabu, O. Okwury, T. Seyoun.

Ok, I’m not a prophet or a soothsayer. Ethiopia national team coach, Sewenet Bishaw, may want to adjust the team a little, but let us look at the SWOT analysis.

 Strength of the Team:

Ethiopia national team has a very compact midfield marshaled by, Minyahele Beyene, Astrat Megersa and Adane Girma… a bunch of hard working midfielders with work rate that can run down any opponent.

The new Ethiopian team is built around the young enterprising attacking midfielder, Shimelis Bekele and the scoring potency of Getaneh kebede and Saladin Said, the top scorer of the team.

Weakness of the Team:

Although, the team has some reliable defenders such as team captain, Degu Debebe and Butako Abebaw. However, the left side of the defense line usually manned by either, B. Elias or Bargicho Salahaon has always been the vulnerable side of the team. The defense line could sometimes loose concentration under intense pressure.

 Opportunities of the Team:

October may be the best time to be in Ethiopia, but the country’s humid climate, around 43 – 50*C, can be a great advantage for the home team.

Most visiting teams find it difficult to acclimatize in Addis Ababa, the players either gets fatigued after first half or early second half. Ethiopian national team takes advantage of this phenomenon to mount intense pressure on their opponent during the last half of the game. You can recall how such pressure got Bernard Parker to score an own goal in the match between Ethiopia Vs South Africa. Watch the Video Below:

Threats against the Team:

Nigeria national team has more top flight players and the experience of Mikel Obi, Victor Moses, Shola Ameobi could count against the Ethiopia side. Nigeria had some good results in their previous meeting in Addis Ababa and that can motivate the Super Eagles.

Nigera team is currently enjoying great form and AFCON highest goal scorer, Emmanuel Emernike and Oduamadi have such ability to score many goals and could just spoil the party at Addis Ababa.

Search Method:

You may want to know how I got to find out all these facts. A simple keyword “Ethiopia National Team” on Google, gave me a search result of 1, 410, 232 articles and videos – that’s more than enough to tell you all you want to know about the team. But it could take you several days, if not weeks to read through all the post, and that’s quite a cumbersome job I won’t want to engage myself in.

So I quickly took 5 minutes to read the history and culture of Ethiopia national team on Wikipedia. Since I’m more interested in the current form and makeup of the team, I decided to check out post of their four recent matches against: Central African Republic, South Africa, Botswana, and Rwanda.

I took the next 40 minutes to watch some videos and read articles for each of the matches from some credible websites such as: fifa.com, supersports.com, goal.com, ethiosports.com and youtube.com. Then I took noted based on SWOT analysis method mentioned above.