The World Cup, which is the greatest soccer showpiece on earth, has come and gone. From the pulsating group stages down through the final stage of the competition, the world witnessed tremendous football display; quite a handful of surprises. Great teams from legendary soccer-playing nations like Germany, Argentina, Spain, Brazil and Portugal have been sent crashing out of this year’s fiesta and some hitherto football minnows showed great flair in this competition. Countries like Mexico, South Korea, Japan and even Iran showed tremendous football promises that warn of their future threats to football powerhouses.
But the performance of African teams in the competition left much to be desired and posed very ominous signals to the future of African football. Africa was represented by five teams in the competition; Nigeria, Egypt, Senegal, Morocco and Tunisia and unfortunately, none of these five teams made it beyond the group stage of the competition! Very damning, you might say. That none of them could lift itself above the group stage is a worrying indictment of African football and this punctures the demand for more African slots in the World Cup, as the world football governing body prepares to enlarge the size of the competition.
In this World Cup, Senegal turned out to be the most successful African team as it showed initial promises to secure a win and a draw in its first two matches, before a last minute loss of nerves made it to toss away perhaps Africa’s brightest hopes of securing a second round berth in the competition
In this World Cup, Senegal turned out to be the most successful African team as it showed initial promises to secure a win and a draw in its first two matches, before a last minute loss of nerves made it to toss away perhaps Africa’s brightest hopes of securing a second round berth in the competition. Nigeria waffled through its legendary preparatory hitches to show a resurgence after it won its second match, after losing the first but recovered its bounce in the third match only to lose it few minutes to a second round qualification. Tunisia, Egypt and Morocco were huge flops that never raised their games to the expected levels, as they earned early exits from their respective groups. So, from the five African contestants in the Mundial, none was able to walk out from their groups, which is perhaps the worst-ever performance by Africa in the World Cup.
Much hopes were placed on the five African teams to excel from the African world record of quarter final appearance which, thus far, is held by three countries; Cameroun, Senegal and Ghana. Many soccer pundits predicted that an African team would make the semi-final of this year’s competition, given the spurts of promises African players had been showing in all parts of the world. Many betted that at least, one of the five African teams would best the standing African record and possibly make it to the semi-final stage, and indeed, many were ready to wager on this before the competition kicked off. Sure, African soccer stars were shinning and doing well in international team football, which ignited the optimism that Africa will show very strong presence in the present World
Cup.
But these high hopes were dashed by the mediocre showing African teams displayed in the competition proper. To say the least, African teams were flat-footed in the World Cup! Let’s face the fact. There were spurts of brilliance in some outings of the African teams but these were eclipsed by the lack of team mission and vision which afflicted the five African nations in this year’s competition. There was a general purposelessness that showed in the matches of these African teams. It was obvious, watching African teams in this competition, that there was a general lack of clue as to how best to deliver as individual teams and take the game higher than the notches their rivals were operating on. The competition exposed one general affliction that is the bane of African football and this is the discernable idea on how to rise to whatever occasion they find themselves and deliver the critical results against their opponents. The non-availability of a sense of direction is why African teams scratched results from incredible sources that defy even their understanding. Most times, African teams just badger their ways into victory and this obliterates a reality in football that victory is a result of deliberate, practised and well-honed efforts, and not just occasional happenstance, as African teams are wont to
believe.
There is no doubt that football is an art, which must be learned, imbibed and improved upon. This is not to say that victory in football is guaranteed under this outline but that teams work their ways to victory; not through forcing their ways through but being able to read each match and decide what best way to adopt to get victory. This is what separates the most successful football nations like Brazil, Italy, Germany from the other teams and it is not surprising that these three nations have won 13 out of the 20 World Cup competitions ever staged. This report is not postulating that because African teams didn’t win the World
Cup, they should be written off. What it rather seeks to advance is that African football must develop to the stage where African teams can work out victories, which are not through occasional spurts of brilliance or through the physical exertion of raw strength but through renewable football arts that would be trusted to produce results; as is the case in Europe and South
America.
*Oparah, social analyst, lives in Ikeja, Lagos and can be reached via peterclaver2000@yahoo.com
