Tunisia’s Mohamed Drager may not be a household name yet, but the 25-year-old right-back has undoubtedly made a name for himself in the FIFA Arab Cup Qatar 2021.
Drager joined the Carthage Eagles after the first two group matches, an inconvenience for a tournament of this statue. However, the former Freiburg man seemed to have brought some much-needed luck, perhaps the missing ingredient in a well-balanced Tunisian team.
They are yet to lose since he made his tournament bow against the UAE and has made the right-back position his own.
On Wednesday against North African rivals Egypt, Tunisia were fortunate in the last seconds as Egypt’s captain Amr El Soulia’s defensive attempt to clear the ball ended up in the top corner, setting up a potential epic against Maghreb foes Algeria.
“Amazing! That’s why we love football,” said Drager yesterday to The Peninsula.
The game gave me goosebumps. From the beginning of the national anthems of both teams, it was amazing.
That’s why we love football, scoring goals in the last 10 seconds from the last freekick and into the upper corner. I don’t have any words for this.
“We cannot complain if we lose, to be honest. We maybe have been the better team, and we could have lost by maybe 1 or 2 goals because we gave them two-three big chances. Today the luck was on our side; maybe it’s the luck we missed against Syria,” he added.
Although Tunisia controlled the game possession-wise and created chances, they seemed to lack the final touch in attack despite scoring eight goals with the top goalscorer in the championship.
“If you see our previous games, we had chances sometimes to close the game in the first half by two, three goals sometimes. We have to work on our last two or three passes. We have to grab every single minute to work on this. But I think we don’t have so much time now to work on that,” Drager said with a grin (the Arab Cup final is tomorrow).
“We have had a big response since losing to Syria. Even in the last game against Oman, we scored in less than two minutes after conceding to make it 1-1. We answered quickly with a strong response. That’s what you need in a tournament. We could have put that game away with Syria, but that’s what a tournament is about. It’s not only one game, but it also a process of five, six, seven games, and here we are in the finals,” he added.
Born to a German father and Tunisian mother, the right-back made his international debut for the Eagles in 2018 and was part of the Tunisian team that finished fourth in the 2019 African Cup of Nations, losing to Nigeria in the third-place match. Since his debut, he has played over 20 times for his country.
However, since his summer move to Championship side Nottingham Forest from Olympiacos, where he won the domestic title, Drager has endured a frustrating spell at the Northwest English club. Due to injuries and a lack of playing time, his performance so far at the Arab Cup has not gone unnoticed, with several clubs already linked to the powerful defender.
“It (the tournament) has come at the right time for me,” Drager said.
“I’m coming from a difficult time with Nottingham Forest, and I wanted to play this tournament to get some minutes, be physically strong and prepare for the AFCON as well. I couldn’t imagine that conditions like these, to be honest it has been amazing since I arrived here. Huge respect to Qatar for all the facilities; that’s World Cup level.”
On potentially playing in the World Cup next year with Tunisia, the buzzing right back said, “Yeah. For sure!
