(Nov 14, 2011, KIGALI, Rwanda)-- In the fading light and steady rain at Amahoro Stadium, the Eritrea national soccer team trained in silence Monday as it prepared for one of its most important matches since securing independence from Ethiopia in 1993.
The team, known as the Red Sea Boys and ranked 190th by FIFA, will face Rwanda on Tuesday in the second leg of their 2014 World Cup preliminary qualifier. If Eritrea wins, it will advance to the second round, a group stage.
But the most important number after the match may not be how many goals Eritrea scores, but how many of its players are on the plane back home.
This is the first time Eritrea has played away from home in two years. The last time the national team left Eritrea, for a regional tournament in Kenya in 2009, the entire team disappeared after a match, later claiming asylum at Nairobi’s United Nations High Commission for Refugees before being resettled in Australia. Eritrea is considered among the most repressive countries in the world.
The players’ defections gained attention internationally after a diplomatic cable titled “Eritrea’s squabbling colonels, fleeing footballers, frightened librarians” and dated Dec. 15, 2009, was released by Wikileaks.
In it, the United States ambassador Ronald K. McMullen wrote: “Human rights abuses are commonplace and most young Eritreans, along with the professional class, dream of fleeing the country, even to squalid refugee camps in Ethiopia or Sudan.” Read more from The New York Times »
The team, known as the Red Sea Boys and ranked 190th by FIFA, will face Rwanda on Tuesday in the second leg of their 2014 World Cup preliminary qualifier. If Eritrea wins, it will advance to the second round, a group stage.
But the most important number after the match may not be how many goals Eritrea scores, but how many of its players are on the plane back home.
This is the first time Eritrea has played away from home in two years. The last time the national team left Eritrea, for a regional tournament in Kenya in 2009, the entire team disappeared after a match, later claiming asylum at Nairobi’s United Nations High Commission for Refugees before being resettled in Australia. Eritrea is considered among the most repressive countries in the world.
The players’ defections gained attention internationally after a diplomatic cable titled “Eritrea’s squabbling colonels, fleeing footballers, frightened librarians” and dated Dec. 15, 2009, was released by Wikileaks.
In it, the United States ambassador Ronald K. McMullen wrote: “Human rights abuses are commonplace and most young Eritreans, along with the professional class, dream of fleeing the country, even to squalid refugee camps in Ethiopia or Sudan.” Read more from The New York Times »
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