2010 W/Cup: Whither Africa’s Soccer?

The ongoing World Cup football tournament in South Africa entered its crucial stage on June 27 when 16 nations qualified into the second round of the global soccer competition.

The thrills and excitements of the world’s foremost soccer tourney have been remarkable, although the performances of five out of the six African nations that started the 32-nation championship have been dismal, resulting in their early exit.

Only the “Black Stars” of Ghana qualified into the round of 16 and carried the banner to the last seconds of the quarter final clash with Uruguay.

Expectedly, the crash of Algeria, Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire, Nigeria and South Africa has dominated discussions and analyses by soccer pundits on radio and TV talk shows in Pretoria, South Africa.

Many of them — former soccer stars who played for their countries at different points in time — are quite unhappy about the fate of African teams at the championships.

Lucas Radebe, a former captain of the South African national team, “Bafana Bafana’’, could not hide his feelings about the poor performance of African teams at the World Cup competition.

According to him, the dismal showing reveals that African countries have not prepared well for the championship.

“It’s indeed a sad commentary for the continent that only Ghana could make it to the next group stage.

“May be, we should start re-thinking our strategy for future tournaments  through early preparations,’’ he says.

Abedi “Pele’’ Ayew, a former captain of the “Black Stars’’, Ghana’s national team, says that most African teams lacked tactical discipline.

 “The teams lack the ability to finish in front of open nets. The players created so many chances to score but wasted them eventually.

 “It is a different thing for the South American and European teams who made good use of their own chances,” he says.

Abedi suggests that handlers of the African teams should improve on their tactical approach to the game, to make them excel in the future.

Former Super Eagles captain, Austin “Jay-Jay’’ Okocha, shares the sentiments of Radebe and Pele regarding the shortcomings of the African teams.

 To him, early preparations and harnessing the potential of the abundant young talents constitute one way of ensuring that African teams excel in international tournaments like the World Cup.

“We need to prepare early for this kind of tournament. We also need to hunt for young talents on the continent and groom them in good time to mature for this kind of engagement,’’ Okocha says.

 Another problem area identified by these analysts is soccer maladministration which, they say, has negatively affected the development of the game of football in Africa.

Mr Oliver Madiba, a resident of Durban in Kwazulu-Natal Province of South Africa, laments that football administrators in Africa do not initiate and operate follow-up programmes to develop the game.

“Football administrators lack continuity in their planning. In the period of ten years, for instance, some countries have had ten managers or coaches who handled their national teams.

“Also, you find a situation where youth programmes are not followed up and talents discovered from such programmes are sometimes left to roam around, seriously wasted,’’ he says.

Ike Anyene, Chairman of the Nigerian Union in Gauteng Province in South Africa, re-echoes Madiba’s sentiments.

He says that Nigeria, in particular, lacks the spirit of continuity in football administration.

 “Can you imagine that a new manager was recruited to handle the national team just three months to the World Cup? Were we then expecting him to perform wonders?’’ he asks.

“Certainly, it is not possible to expect much from him,’’ he asserts. 

Anyene also regrets that the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) has not been able to effectively mobilise the abundant soccer talents that had been discovered in the past and groom them for future championships.

“I am aware that members of the national Under-17 team that represented the country in the last FIFA U-17 World Cup tournament, which was hosted by Nigeria, remain largely unutilised.

“I urge the NFF to keep these boys together for the next CAF and FIFA U-20 tournaments and possibly use them for the 2014 World Cup that is scheduled to hold in Brazil.

“It looks like an uphill task but any purposeful football federation can do it and I bet you, they will get good results from the strategy,’’ Anyene says.

Another Nigerian, Osadebe Ibegbu, who is Chairman of the Nigerian Union in Durban, Kwazulu-Natal, says that the poor outing of the Super Eagles calls for sober reflections, with a view to ensuring better planning in the future.

 “Indeed, the entire Nigerian community in Durban was not happy that the team could not win its last match against Korea, to qualify to the round of 16.

 “It is now up to the NFF to re-plan their strategy for all future international engagements and the time to do it is now,’’ Ibegbu says.

Radebe, the ex-skipper of “Bafana Bafana’’, wants the issue of coaches and technical managers for Africa’s national teams to be decisively addressed

While some support the deployment of indigenous coaches, others express preference for foreign ones, who they think are technically superior and better exposed.

A female analyst, Christiana Buthulezi from Bloemfontein in the

Free State Province, says that she prefers indigenous coaches who could communicate with their players in languages that their opponents would not understand.

Other analysts, however, say that there are brighter prospects for African teams in future championships, if they learn to put their acts together through early preparations.

They also underscore the wisdom in grooming young talents for the national teams of countries.

They point at the Ghanaian example of harnessing young talents as an illustration, stressing that the young footballers collectively saw Ghana through to the second round of the ongoing World Cup tournament.

Nine of the Black Stars graduated into squad from Ghana’s U-20 team, the analysts note.

Mboye writes for NAN

Mike Mbonye