WC exposes Africa deficiencies in development

THE 2022 FIFA World Cup group stage second game fixtures in Qatar have boosted the hopes of some African teams such as Morocco, Senegal and Ghana to qualify for the knock out stage.

Cameroon and Tunisia are the likely early nations to dismally fail to qualify in their groups as they have failed to win a single game. Senegal managed to win their first game against the host nation Qatar, which was expected considering that the quality of Qatar is not highly competitive and pose serious threats at this level of global stage of top-flight football.

Every game played by most African nations exposes the visible harsh realities of huge differences of tactical intelligence between us and all other countries that are participating in this tournament.

However, Morocco’s win against Belgium is the benchmark that Africa has to aspire to achieve sooner.

Morocco’s squad had everything in terms of quality, fair selection, youthful dynamism and good management skills.

Judging by what we hear about how “technical and skilful’’ Africans are, our physical presence and athleticism, the modern scientific approaches being strategically designed to impact the advances of human abilities on the pitch, have resonated with the narrative that critically question the management systems and administration of football in the continent.

When others are busy learning from the game, the impact of scientific research and influences, in Africa we are still in denial of these advances that are distinctively widening the gaps between the good students of the game whose attention to detail in learning from the pitch threatens the continental pursuit of having just one country that will reach the semi-final stages of future World Cup tournaments.

It’s still rife to notice local football engaging in sangomas, outdated rituals and ‘’prayerful indulgences’’ before games and training sessions. In this modern day of change that has witnessed the evolving of football, our beliefs are still wired in the past. The failure to learn from the game, the arrogance that blight our abstinence to accept new ideas and knowledge threaten the pillars of grassroots football development across the continent.

Almost all the African coaches in Qatar (except for the Moroccan coach), they have shown a degree of poor tactical intelligence, game management and strategies for the tournament’s priorities. When we celebrated one of Africa’s greatest legends — Roger Milla of Cameroon — when he set the stage alight in 1990 as he led the then Indomitable Lions to the quarter-finals of the World Cup, Brazilian football legend Pele predicted that one of Africa’s teams will surely one day win the World Cup in our lifetime.

That prediction is becoming an albatross heavily weighing on our shoulders at every World Cup tournament as reality dissipates Pele’s words much quicker than the morning dew in hot weather.

Cameroon are our continental problem child with their faltering hopes of ever reaching the semi-finals as per prediction. They seem to care less when they lose out on their top talents like Kylian Mbappe (a victim of bribery infested team selection criterion within the FA of Cameroon), Embolo (Switzerland’s goal scorer against his country of origin), Joel Matip (the central defender of Liverpool who refused to play for his national team due to the unprofessional selection process of players to represent their nation) and many others scattered around Europe.

Cameroon’s inability to rid itself of this cancer is shockingly widespread in Africa and even Zimbabwe’s national teams are resplendent of such ailments. When we qualified for the last African Cup of Nations finals in Cameroon, the cancerous cells of African football were bared out by the selection process, and the paucity of ideas in managing the game and lack of tactical intelligence projection throughout the tournament.

Morocco’s recent win against Belgium is a timely reminder that the game is the greatest teacher, not the festering mafia gangsters and cartels on a continental football capture spree that’s destroying Africa’s hopes of ever reaching the semi-finals of the World Cup and also helping to increase the current 5 slots to 6 or more.

When our local football structures fail to learn from the modern game, then the narrative that lambast African football as a joke and mixture of confusion holds true.

Coach education programmes that infuse modern details of top-flight professional football are non-existent, continuous professional development of local coaches is rare and, talk of improving the management systems and administration of our football structures, it all adds up to the sad joke we resemble then, and now.