African Kings | Part 14 | Promising Youth in Tunisia

From humble beginnings in his homeland of Zambia, Trebor Mahtal had risen to top of African football by lifting the CAF Champions League with an exciting Pyramids FC side. However, with consecutive Egyptian league titles also in the bag, it was time to move on for another challenge, so Mahtal resigned on 1 June 2040.

There weren’t too many interesting jobs available upon resigning, but he did throw his name into the mix for a role in Tunisia. A couple of weeks later, they offered an interview and, three days after that, they approached Mahtal to become their new manager.

Who are CS Sfaxien?

Club Sportif Sfaxien, also known as CSS and النادي الرياضي الصفاقسي in Arabic, is a Tunisian club based in the city of Sfax, a port city around 170 miles southeast from the capital Tunis. The club was founded in 1928 with the name Club Tunisien and played in red and green stripes, before renaming and switching to black and white stripes in 1962. Sfaxien won their first Tunisian title in 1969 and added seven more in real life, with the most recent in 2013, before winning one more during this save in 2028. The club has also won the CAF Confederation Cup 3 times, been runner-up in the Champions League twice, in 2006 and 2035m and won 11 Coupe de Tunisie, of which 4 were during this save. Last season, Sfaxien finished 5th in Championnat de Ligue Professionnelle 1, which is the 3rd-most reputable league in Africa behind Egypt and South Africa’s top tiers, a huge 27 points behind winners Espérance Tunis.

The club plays at the extremely imaginatively named 28,750-capacity CS Sfaxien Stadium, which was built in 2036 and is supported by average training and youth facilities and good academy coaching and youth recruitment. As per usual, Mahtal walks into a club with pretty poor finances, with £200k in the bank, £2.2m of debt, a £400k transfer budget and overspending a £38k wage budget by £4k. Mahtal addressed that by selling 14 players for just under £4m and released 8 players to slash £18k off the wage bill.

The best player remaining was the rarity of a real-life player in 33-year-old midfielder Mamadou Sow, who has 36 caps for Tunisia. A few more senior players include Nouhoun Sanou, who’s going to retrain as a centre back, goalkeeper Eyram Agbevor, winger Ousmane Djiba and centre back Ahmed El Bahrawi. But there was plenty of promising youth led by midfielders Ilias Saghri and Omar Abbes, attackers Ali Jabri, Belgacem Najjar and Ahmed Salhi, right back Amir Issaoui and midfielder Mejdi Ferchichi. And Mahtal added to that by signing Sudanese centre back Omer Osman for £180k.

Mahtal wanted to build a team around exciting attackers Salhi and Jabri, with Sow providing the defensive solidity. He cooked up a bit of a mad-hat tactic that plays as a 4-1-3-2 in possession and drops back into a 4-5-1.

Youngsters Shine Early on in Tunisia

CS Sfaxien were 4th favourites for the Tunisian title with odds of 20/1. Espérance Tunis, who Mahtal defeated in last season’s Champions League Final, are 2/7 favourites having won the last 12 titles and 16 of the last 17, with Sfaxien’s success in 2028 the only non-Tunis win since 2023. Other potential challengers are Étoile Sahel (14/1) and Club Africain (18/1), US Monasitr (33/1) and Ben Guerdane, Stade Tunisien, AS Marsa and Espérance Zarzis (50/1).

Mahtal’s time in Tunisia began with Jabri rescuing a point at home to Avenir Gabés. But they were much improved at Kalaa Sport as an early Djiba goal set them off before a late flurry by Osman, Salhi’s first senior goal and Jabri secured a 4-0 win, before Jabri nicked a 3-2 win at Marsa. The youngsters continued to impress as Salhi scored the opener and laid on the second for left winger Rayen Lahmar in a 2-1 win at Ben Guerdane. Despite completely dominating Espérance Zarzis by 20 shots to 6, they somehow lost for the first time to a goal from the visitors’ only corner.

They recovered to win 2-1 at Club Africain and a couple of draws were followed by Jabri, playing as a deep-lying forward, scored twice in a 4-1 win over Jendouba Sport. Sfaxien got very draw happy, tying 5 of Mahtal’s first 11 games, but another Jabri double downed Étoile Sahel 4-1 before a 2-0 defeat at Tunis left them 8 points back from the title favourites. But, halfway through the 30-game season, Sfaxien sat in a strong 2nd place, with just 6 points separating them from 6th place heading into a two-month break.

Mahtal had switched up the tactical approach, moving to an asymmetric 3-5-2 in possession and more of a 4-5-1 out of possession, which had worked nicely in the last month of 2040. And it looked fairly decent as they raced into a two-goal lead inside 8 minutes at home to Kalaa in the first game of 2041, before a late Jabri strike rescued his defenders in a 3-2 win. And a strong conclusion to the season saw them wrap up 2nd place, albeit 8 points behind Tunis, who lost their last 2 games. They finished on 64 points after 19 wins, 7 draws and 4 defeats, scoring a new club record 62 goals and conceding 30. Jabri was surprisingly the top scorer with 15 in 28 and Saghiri got the 2nd-most assists with 10.

Targeting Dominant Espérance Tunis… or Move Elsewhere?

Mahtal was pleased with his Sfaxien side’s progress this season. Jabri led the way with 15 goals in 29 games, which was surprisingly a new club record. Saghiri delivered 10 assists and Sanou scored 8 goals from centre back. Mahtal moved quickly to make some big signings that would go through at the start of July. However, just as he was preparing to take the fight to Espérance next season, he received an interview offer from South African giants Mamelodi Sundowns, who’d failed to win the league for the first time in about 8 years.

That gave Mahtal a huge decision whether to stick with his exciting young Sfaxien squad or seek redemption with a huge South African side. So which one would he choose? Join us on Friday to find out!