Soccer, Soccer & more Soccer Eritrean style

     The Red Sea Boys not the young under 17 Red Sea boys who just got done playing in the CECAFA Youth Cup championships a couple of months ago, but the big boys the Eritrean National Soccer team is participating in the CECAFA Senior Challenge cup taking place in Kenya. They have shown that they are capable of playing well as indicated in their first game of the event. They held a strong Zimbabwe team to tie in their first game of this year's version of the senior challenge cup played at Nairobi Stadium.

Eritrea and Zimbabwe drew 0-0 in their Group “B” standing. Zimbabwe is no joking matter as they are the champions of their version of regional event (COSAFA) for Southern African countries which includes Zambia, South Africa and other strong teams. Both Zambia and Zimbabwe were invited as guests for this year’s Central and East African Challenge cup (CECAFA)

Zimbabwe beat Zambia 3-1 last month to win the Cosafa Senior Challenge Cup a tournament similar to CECAFA for the Southern African regional teams. The second guest side Zambia also from the southern region has qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations 2010 in Angola after earning a 0-0 draw against Rwanda on Saturday. Zambia is no walk over either as they just defeated Asian world cup participant North Korea by the score of 4-1 in a friendly game this past weekend.

This marks the 33^rd of the Council for East Africa and Central Africa Football Association tournament taking place at the National Stadium in Nairobi, Kenya. Eritrea is joined by Somalia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe in Group B and will face Rwanda in the next match on Thursday; December 3rd. Eri-International sports will keep you updated with results from the CECAFA challenge cup.

In other news Eritrea will be playing their next game opponent Rwanda in March 2010 at home and away in the first round qualifying match of the 2010 African nations cup that will be held in Angola. Meanwhile Eritrean-Swede Henok Goitom has made his come back as he played his first game of the season for La Liga side Almeria in a loss to atletico Bilbao this past weekend. We will have more on Henok as new developments happen.

In other news from the land down under, we leave you with a nice short video highlight of another Eritrean born soccer player with a very fitting name Gol Gol Mebrahtu, who is playing in the Australian first division for Gold Coast United. His skills can be seen as he set up a Penalty kick by taking on two players and passing to his teammate that was fouled in the Penalty box.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axbP7Vz1Liw&feature=player_embedded#

In other local news members of Eritrean community soccer teams Baltimore, Team DC & Team Alexandria joined in hands to play in an indoor soccer tournament at PGCC (Prince Georges Community College) a national championship contender in Junior college soccer. Playing against other strong teams the Eritrean team made it to the semifinals showing some beautiful display of soccer. All of the 8 players of which 7 are available to attend college have left big impressions on the coaches.  Eri-International sports has also reported on another young Eritrean-American who had a great season at College of Southern Maryland. Please read previous article on this blog titled "Meet Mulugheta Asihel: Up and coming College soccer star."

 Members of Eritrean teams from the DC metro area who participated at the PGCC international tourney.

Good luck to the Red Sea boys as they have a huge challenge ahead of them but they seem to have started off very well. 

For now this is Mike Seium for Eri-international sports blog.

http://eri-internationalsports.blogspot.com/