Tunisia’s Aidi: ‘Handball is in our blood’

Esperance Sportive de Tunis’ left back Mohamed Aziz Aidi has slowly been working his way into the thoughts of Tunisia coach Mohamed Ali Sghir and his plans for success at the 2019 IHF Men’s Junior World Championship underway in Spain in currently.

After four of their five preliminary group A games, Tunisia have qualified through to the eighth-finals already ahead of their final group clash against Serbia today which is a play-off for third place in the group with both teams on four points so far following two wins each.

The North African silver medallists started their campaign against the European champions Slovenia, losing 32:25 with Aidi playing just over 25 minutes and failing to get on the scoresheet.

Following that opening day loss, hosts Spain were next for Tunisia, but they suffered a six-goal (26:20) defeat with Aidi starting, and playing, just over 10 minutes more in the game and grabbing a solitary strike from distance. Next up were Japan, and Tunisia finally got their first win, 26:25 in the final seconds, with Aidi scoring twice in the near-30 minutes he played after starting.

Yesterday, they laboured to a 23:20 win against the USA in which Sghir’s side were behind numerous times throughout the first half but it appears Aidi has now found his rhythm in the team, starting the match and playing all but just over six minutes, scoring six times and making a number of crucial blocks in defence.

“The coach gave me the chance to play in attack and I did my best, but I wish I could play better next time,” said Aidi to IHF.info after the victory against America. “In the first half we had trouble, we were not at our level of playing; we were missing some balls, some passes. 

“At half-time coach was not satisfied with what we were doing; he said; ‘this was not us for the first half’, he was angry,” added Aidi. “He motivated us [to do better in the second half]. He told us to play for the win, not play easy and play at our level and that’s what we did – we suffered, and our goals were not easy, but we won and that’s what we want. In the end we did it.”

Last time at an IHF Men’s Junior World Championship, Tunisia made it through the eighth-finals to the quarter-final stage, eventually finishing seventh at Algeria 2017 and, with the winners of that clash against Serbia later today having a potentially easier opponent in the eighth-finals, Aidi knows what is expected.

“We have to beat Serbia to qualify in third place and we will see what we will do,” he said. “We will watch how they played against Slovenia and we will watch and see what we can do against them.

“For our first two matches here, it wasn’t ‘us’ – we were up and down. We missed passes, missed easy goals, but now we are learning from our faults and we are doing our best. We are progressing match-by-match and we hope that we will be better.”

Group A has seen teams from North America, Asia, Europe and Africa compete and for Aidi it is one of the most exciting things about playing in a world championship but despite the global nature of the competition, there is only one country he is focussed on.

“That’s the flavour of a world championship,” he said about playing established and new teams from different continents. “The best thing about a world championship is knowing other cultures and having friends all over the world, that’s the flavour, that’s the game, that’s handball.

“But all the world knows Tunisia is a big handball country,” he added. “We have the handball culture; we have handball in our blood. It’s an honour to play for Tunisia and wear the Tunisia flag on our chests. We are suffering and doing our best for the Tunisian people to make them happy – that is what we wish for.”