posted Feb 4, 2008

Skill for skill.. some of the African teams are better than some of the top teams in Europe.. I look at the Ivory Coast and I see Drogba a pure stricker with a cool ability to score goals... in mid field Zokora and Yaya Toure.. in defense Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Eboue and Arthur Boka and throughout.. Salomon Kalou and others.. player for player yes.. maybe the organization and technical staff are what will keep the African teams from winning the WC in the foreseeable future.. the level of football in Africa has progressed tremendously.. Egypt,the Ivory Coast, and Ghana teams at this year's ACN could go far in the next WC no doubt.. There is one big problem though..government officials' incompetence and mis management of the National teams

I read the commentary from the Mali coach a few days ago.. symptomatic of the ills of African football.. he said that they prepared this CAN in Spain at the facility of a local Spanish team ... somewhere in Spain the spanish team had 7 KIN and physical therapists tending to the players fitness.. Mali had 10 government officials flown from Mali to Spain at great costs just to follow the team around ( as hangs on of course) and only 1 physical therapist.. That shows where the problem lies and why Africa will have to wait for some years to contend at the highest level of World Soccer

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posted Feb 5, 2008

sad

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posted Feb 9, 2008

well said Lievin. the incompetent and corpulent who want to steal as much as they want from their countries is robbing African nations of their values both on and off the pitch. I hear this talk of democracy and it sickens me, democracy in Africa is a sham it is not democracy at all but an oligarchical monster that drives the wheels of corruption. Kenya, Nigeria. etc. What is needed to combat this is simply not available within the mentality of African leaders.

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posted Feb 9, 2008

Congratulations to Africa on putting one of the best soccer shows on earth. The best teams made it to the semi finals and anyone one of them not only will make Africa proud as its Champion but also deepen the embarrassment of Fifa as it continues to discriminate against Africa with only 5 WC spots and CAF that continues to work against the best interests of Africa with its ridiculous WC qualification process. Other than the top 4 or 5 European teams, Brazil, and Argentina, there are no other teams that can claim superiority over the Nations Cup semi-finalists when they are locked an loaded for a tournament? In fact, who can make such a claim against Nigeria, Morocco, and Senegal that did not make it to the semi finals? How is then that Europe has almost three time the WC spots per country than Africa? How is it that S America gets almost the same number of WS spots for 10 countries that Africa get for 53 countries? If you remove Brazil and Argentina from the list which continent has the bay far the strongest teams? What is the record of the remaining team against each other on neutral grounds?

Shame on CAF too for its shameful qualification process that justifies Fifa’s injustice by continuously ensuring the poorest possible Africa showing at the WC by making it difficult for the continent’s perennial powers to consistently qualify to gain the experience necessary to beat the World’s best teams and finally change Fifa’s indefensible assignment equations. Countries like Cameroon, Egypt, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Senegal are almost never out of the top 32 team in the world no matter what the ridiculous Fifa ranking says. CAF needs to make sure their qualification process does not stack the best teams against each other as it did with Morocco, Senegal, and Egypt in 2002 and Cameroon, Egypt, and Ivory Coast in 2006 only to allow smaller countries to set back the steady progress Africa has been making before the 2006 WC. CAF needs only to ask itself why and how Europe and South America manage to put their best teams in the WC almost every time and why they go through all the trouble of giving the second and sometimes third teams in each group a second chance to qualify through different brackets? If CAF does not adopt this system right away, the top teams in Africa will never get enough experience and confidence for one of them to one day lift The WC.

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posted Feb 9, 2008

I think If Egypt or ivory coast or Ghana or Angola or tunisia qualified, they would easily beat the teams like England, France, Spain , Sweden. The teams that could really comepte with african Teams are Italy, holland, and Portugal. The really competition will be the teams from South America. England did not even qualify to Euro 2008. I doubt they would even qualify to South Africa 2010.

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posted Feb 9, 2008

Who knows. Ivory Coast certainly have the team to reach the semis. But you need the luck of the draw and a coach shrewd enough to overcome tough European and South American sides.

Compared to many sides in Europe Ivory Coast have a really good squad. In reality only France, Spain, Brazil and Argentina have better players than Ivory Coast. If only Ivory Coast had a decent keeper!!

But as Egypt have shown doesn't matter what the team looks like on paper. You need to play with a unit.

Ghana have fantastic midfielders but don't have the strikers to make it that far to semis.

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posted Feb 9, 2008

Egypt is magic team

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posted Feb 11, 2008

the Egyptian Team has shown the best tactics and formations during this tournment, and surely it contains some of the best top players in the world. Egypt can definetly reach an advanced stage in the WC. Congratulations to all Egyptians, we deserve it.

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posted Feb 11, 2008

Nigeria will bounce back and reach the semi final stage in 2010 that is if they put their house in order and employ a coach which is attack minded. Also Cote d' ivore will make a geat impact in 2010. The Egyptian team will struggle in 2010. But i see it as one of the world cup an African team will excel. time will only tell

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posted Feb 13, 2008

Yeah i think teams like the Ivory Coast and Nigeria have great potential to do something big at the next world cup. With the right management, organisation and preperation I cant see why not

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