Hannibal dreaming of international silverware

Tunisia take on Algeria in the Arab Cup final this afternoon and Manchester United youngster Hannibal Mejbri is starting. You can watch the game on FIFA TV.

Hannibal, whose enjoyed a great tournament so far, spoke to the official site about how much it would mean to him to win the cup.

Of course, I’m really, really excited for the final against Algeria. After all, it’s a final. We’re going to give absolutely everything and concentrate on our game. It would mean so much, not just for the players but for the country as a whole.

Everyone knows what it’s like in Africa and in Tunisia: we live, eat and sleep football. So if we were to win then it’d bring us even closer to our people, moving in the right direction together and it would give us so much strength to go on and achieve even more.

He’s won two Man of the Match awards, including the semi-final against Egypt but isn’t sure which was his better performance.

It’s hard to choose one, because they were both very different matches. In one, we had a lot of the ball and I was able to create lots of different opportunities and in the other it was more about putting in defensive effort. In both of them, I think they were good matches. Both personally and as a team I think we put in good performances in both of them and were tactically very good, so they’ve both got their own qualities: the first one more attacking-wise, the second more defensively.

Everything that I’ve experienced is a learning curve and I’m going to take everything that I can from it. It’s a huge honour and pleasure to play for my country so I thank the staff for giving me that opportunity and thank the Tunisian people.