One to Watch: Amine Chermiti

While we’re all excited about seeing big name players like Didier Drogba and Michael Essien at the African Cup of Nations 2008, here’s a little reminder that there’s more to the tournament than the Premier League players we’re already familiar with.

This is from the FIFA Club World Cup third-place playoff between Tunisia’s Étoile du Sahel and Japan’s Urawa Read Diamonds. Urawa would later delight the Japanese crowd by winning on penalties after a 2-2 draw, but take a look at this goal by young Tunisian talent Amine Chermiti.

The 19 year old pulls a nice nutmeg on the Urawa defender before getting knocked to the floor, but rather than rolling around like Cristiano Ronaldo he gets straight up and charges the Urawa keeper, strips him of the ball and buries it.

Chermiti only broke into the Étoile first team last season, but has scored an impressive 12 goals in 18 appearances for Étoile and is already off the mark for the Tunisian national team. Chermiti is also cultivating a bit of a bad boy reputation. He’s expected to go to Ghana and represent Tunisia at the 26th African Cup of Nations, but will miss the first two group games through suspension after being sent off in Tunisia’s final ACN qualifier against Tunisia.

But with Tunisia expected to progress we should still get to see plenty of Chermiti in action. The youngster knows how to play and things tend to happen when he’s on the pitch. Sometimes very weird things, as this video of him biting a Club Africain defender shows.