Friday, October 24, 2008

Have You Checked Out The Insyder's New Website?

It's been remixed and revamped! Have you checked out our new website yet? Well if you've not done it yet, check it out people...CLICK HERE
The site is still undergoing serious transformations, so please feel free to give us comments on how we can make it a site worthy of the coolest mag on the planet.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Harambee Stars Get The Eagles

Wololo! Harambee Stars have jumped into the fire. Our boys have landed the Eagles: The Super Eagles and those ones of Carthage (Tunisia). God have mercy on our boys, but it looks like we're not going to Angola in 2010. For those who were on cheap drugs, let me bring you back to earth: We were never going to South Africa in 2010 people! Time for rehab I guess.
Here's how the draw looks like for our Stars. We happen to find ourselves in Group B with:
  1. Nigeria (World Ranking: 27, Africa Ranking: 4)
  2. Tunisia (47, 8)
  3. Mozambique (100, 27)

Harambee Stars are ranked 76th in the world and 18th on the continent.

The rest of the groupings are as follows-

Group A
Togo
Cameroon
Morocco
Gabon

Group C
Rwanda
Algeria
Egypt
Zambia
Group D
Ghana
Benin
Sudan
Mali

Group E
Côte d'Ivoire
Malawi
Burkina Faso
Guinea
Yaani things are so elephant, even the team we can consider the weaker opposition, Mozambique, can still twanga our asses despite being ranked lower than us! But that's where our hope lies, if we are going to make it to the other Portugese speaking African nation for the AFCON fiesta in 2010, we must beat the Mambas of Mozambique at home and in Maputo. And they can be beaten at home. Botswana beat them 1-0 during the last qualifying phase. Despite the loss to Botswana, the Mambas still managed to hold Cote d'Ivoire to a one-all draw in Maputo!
Traditionally, we have done relatively well against West African opposition at home. Our last encounter with the Super Eagles about 11 years ago ended in a one-all draw. We also seem to be able to hold the North Africans here as well. It is the away games that we seem to crumble - especially at the north!
Angola 2010 is simply out of our hands unless we beat Mozambique both home and away, and pray and hope the Naija boys and Tunisia keep their end of the rankings by whipping the southern Africans. We can forget beating Naija in Lagos or Abuja, but we can repeat our exploits of one decade ago by holding them to a draw...PSYCHE! The Super Eagles seem to be peaking at the right moment for 2010 (both Angola and South Africa), and with every game look like the side that will do Africa proud at the world cup. Tunisia's recent form (W W W D W) on the continent make them hard to stop. Their recent 1-3 loss to France is inconsequential coz the struggling Europeans can dismantle Harambee Stars while they sip of French wine. My money is on Nigeria topping the group, with Tunisia taking the runners-up position. The 3rd and final berth for the AFCON championship in Angola will be ours if only we can be the Mozambiqans and hold the Eagles to a draw in Nairobi. I believe 8 points will be enough for us to secure a place in Angola.