Why Africa lost out on her ‘World Cup’
The 2010 edition of the FIFA World Cup is probably history by now. The tournament in its 80th year was held for the first time on the African continent. The hosting of the tournament by South Africa raised some eye brows in sporting circles around the world until the host nation proved skeptics wrong with an incredible opening ceremony and an interesting tournament.
The flag of the 'Rainbow' nation
There were also those who feared that South Africa’s high crime rate would disturb the tournament but organizers handled fall outs of the tournament with relative ease.
Africa fielded 6 of her best teams in the tournament alongside 26 other teams from Europe, Asia and the Americas. But this year’s world cup turned out to be one full of surprises and one which has seen the high and mighty fall softly and quickly. One of the major casualties of the tournament is 5-time winners Brazil who were sent packing home by the Netherlands in the quarter final stage of the tournament. Defending champions Italy barely made it out of their group and had to exit just after the first round of games.
To say that Africa did any better at this World Cup tournament will be a great disservice to the word ‘better’. Of the six African nations, Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and hosts South Africa, Ghana was the only country that stood up to save Africa the shame of exiting the world cup being staged on her own soil.
By the end of the first round of group matches, all of Africa’s representatives but Ghana had exited the tournament. Host nation South Africa managed a win over the troubled 1998 host-and-win winners, France before both of them crashed out of the tournament.
Algeria did play some good football during their brief stay in South Africa but alas, their good soccer skills did not provide the needed goals to make stay on beyond the group stages of the tournament. Cameroon and Cote d’Ivoire struggled to find their footing in the tournament but when they finally did, it was way too late. Cote d’Ivoire for instance repeated Ghana’s performance against Brazil at the 2006 World Cup by losing 3-1 to Brazil.
Nelson Mandela held the World Cup but could not keep it in Africa
Much to the disappointment of many soccer analysts and lovers, the Samuel Eto’o led Cameroonian side did not achieve much and had to bow out at the end of the group stage. Many Nigerians were heart broken when their player Kaita was booked for a red card after trying to stump an Argentinean player on the side lines. He reported received over 1,000 death threats via emails and voice mails on his phone. Their abysmal performance prompted newly inaugurated President, Goodluck Jonathan to threaten a 2-year ban on the Super Eagles from participating in international tournaments. Mr. Jonathan has since withdrawn the proposed ban following a warning from football governing body FIFA to the Nigerian government not to politicize football.
Ghana however kept the continent’s hopes alive with her sterling performance which saw her go through to the quarter finals. Although the Black Stars had hoped to make it to the semi finals to re-write the African history at the world cup, their hopes were dashed when Uruguay beat them in a 4-2 penalty shootout to send the stars packing home.
So what accounted for Africa’s poor showing at the world cup? Analysts have propounded several theories for Africa’s massive flop.
Elloeny Amande hosts the Sports Station on TV3. He thinks the African teams are not properly developed yet. “Traditionally, African teams struggle to go beyond the first round. The only African team to have qualified beyond the group stages last time was Ghana at Germany 2006. It looks like it will be repeated this year.” Certainly, Ghana did go beyond the group stages. He adds “the best African performance at the world cup has been Cameroon and Senegal getting to the quarter final stage. So it should tell you that the world cup is a very tough competition.”
Net 2’s Inside Sports host Ekow Arthur thinks the whole issue with the African teams boils down to discipline. “African teams to be frank are not disciplined” he said. “The issue also has to do with preparation. Not all the African teams played a lot of friendlies before the start of the tournament and again most African players are mediocre” he added.
The BBC’s Peter Okwoche re-echoes Ekow Arthur’s point about discipline. Peter argues the teams lack discipline and commitment. He observed that some of the players were engaged in selfish play as a bit to market themselves to scouts following the tournament. Commenting on the poor show of both Ivorian and Nigerian teams, Peter Okwoche said it was to be expected since their coaches joined the teams just 4 weeks to the start of the tournament. And for the Bafana Bafana having only 4 European based players was not enough to convince Peter that they would survive beyond the group stage.
South African football club owner Jomo Sono thinks Africa presented the best of her football nations. Mr. Sono who owns Jomo Cosmos football club in South Africa remarked Ghana had it working for her because the team played as a unit. “Ghana did not have big name players or television players but they worked as a unit. Sometimes we Africans tend to be more individual than collective, we should learn to be collective. There’re too many individual players playing for themselves.”
While indiscipline and individualism has been cited by some analysts as the being the cause of Africa’s loss at the World Cup, Ibrahim Sani of the BBC also raises the issue of maintaining coaches. According to him, having a stable coach helps a team go far. “Milovan Rajevac has been in charge of the Black Stars for 2 years” he said and “Nigeria appointed a new coach just 2 months before the world cup”. He noted that since Ghana realized that it will go into the tournament without some of her key players, young players were introduced into the team something other African countries failed to do. “You’ll want to question why a player like Rigobert Song is still in the Cameroonian team when he has constantly been responsible for the team’s downfall” he said. Apart from that, Ibrahim thinks the ego of the African players affected their various teams.
So with these pitfalls identified, have the coaches of the African sides at the 2010 world cup learnt any lessons? Are they going back to the drawing board? 2014 in Brazil might appear far off in calendar years but in real football terms, it might be just around the corner. Can Africa do any better?
