Match Report
Étoile du Sahel edged past Étoile du Zarzis 2-1 in the second round of the League 1 regular season on Friday evening. The hosts took the lead through M. Trabelsi in the twenty-third minute before I. Belwafi levelled for the visitors just after the hour mark. It was M. Jertila who came up with the winner in the ninety-second minute, closing out a game that had swung back and forth.
Both sides made changes at the break, with Sahel bringing on four players including J. Belkilani and A. Oluwaseun. The visitors responded with two substitutions of their own, one of which saw Belwafi withdrawn after his equaliser. By then the match had settled into a rhythm of end-to-end football, neither side willing to cede the initiative.
Twelve minutes into the second half Sahel regained the advantage. Trabelsi's early effort had caught the visitors off guard, and Belwafi's response showed they were not done yet. The turning point came near the end when Jertila found space to fire home, and the Sahel bench erupted. A sell-out crowd made itself heard as the hosts kept knocking on the door.
Two yellow cards arrived in the closing stages, both for the visitors at sixty-eighth and seventy-seventh minutes. Sahel kept their disciplinary record clean, while the away side paid the price for a few rash challenges. The decisions were not controversial, but they added tension to what had been an open contest.
In the statistics, possession was evenly split at fifty-one percent to forty-nine. Sahel registered five shots on target against four for Zarzis, though the visitors managed eight attempts off target. Attacks stood at sixty-seven for the hosts and seventy-one for the away side, suggesting both teams wanted to dictate play.
The result leaves Sahel third on four points from two games, having drawn their opening fixture before this victory. Zarzis sit seventh with three points, their season having gone from a win to a loss in as many matches. The gap between them is small, but Sahel have already shown they can raise the tempo when they need to.