Africa and the World Cup — What is the way forward?

Brazil 2014 is now history, and the post-mortem is raging on everywhere. The Germans have benefited from their long planning to be world champions, and a lot has to be learnt from them. The world football governing body, FIFA, we all know, is leaving no stone unturned to encourage the success of the game in Africa.

To deepen the interest in the game, a lot of facilities and mouth watering GOAL projects are spreading all over. Of course, it is clear football is the passion of every land, with every child of schooling age hoping to become a superstar in future, hence in remote villages, there are goal posts on every little space to serve as a football pitch.

Every village teacher is aware of the Gogisberg Educational Plan  which made football a compulsory subject and its development an untouchable pastime. In fact, we are so obsessed with the game that the villagers watch the World Cup as keenly as those in the cities. Every single FIFA president makes it an agenda to spread the game, and Sepp Blatter is no exception. He wants to add colour to the competition and has continually advocated for an increase in African representatives in the four-year event.

But is the African really determined to reciprocate the hope and aspiration of the FIFA chief with all the gusto to reach the highest limit, and possibly winning the World Cup? 

After all, a look at Cameroun, who were making their seventh appearance, Nigeria making their fourth, Algeria, their fourth, Cote d'Ivoire, their third and the high-flying Black Stars who had made a real impact in their previous two appearances, made predictions very re-assuring. 

Cameroun, led by the highly-rated Samuel Eto’o, looked very promising from the onset. They were on record as the first African nation to reach the quarter-finals as far back as 1990, the year Germany won their third World Cup in Italy. The expectation has always been that they would improve on their record.

So much was expected of the Black Stars, who nearly advanced to the semi-finals in the last tournament in South Africa. But they, too, never won a single match in their Group G, having lost 1-2 to the United States of America in a revenge duel and by the same margin to Portugal. Of course, they could brag of drawing 2-2 with the eventual winners, Germany, who set a new record of beating the host nation Brazil 7-1 in the semi-finals

The talk in town is all about the Black Stars’ poor showing and their indiscipline which subjected our country to all the ridicule internationally. Some foreign media refer to the misdemeanour of the Stars as a sign of immaturity, and it is really painful.

Nigeria repeated what they did in their first attempt in 1994 when they advanced to the Round of 16. Then beat Bosnia 1-0, drew 0-0 with Iran and lost gallantly by 2-3 to Argentina, who ended as the runners-up. Vincent Enyeama and his men such as Joseph Yobo, Efe Ambrose, Juwon Oshaniwa, Emmanuel Emenike, Peter Odewinge  and others left a good impression in Brazil.

Algeria did equally well, reaching the Group of 16 after winning one match in Group H over South Korea, drawing with Russia and losing 1-2 to Belgium. Indeed, Germany had to pull all their experience and arsenal to beat Algeria 2-1 to eliminate them. They had an impressive tournament with goalkeeper Maghi Rais and his team mates, Ejacine Brahimi, Medhi Lacen and the rest.

My greatest worry is how all the African countries who manage to reach the quarter-finals at the Mundial fade away so fast. It happened to Cameroun after 1990, and Senegal after 2002. The question is "what is the way forward?" Well, is Ghana going to set an example with the three-man fact-finding commission, or the fresh football forum set by the new Youth and Sports Minister, Mahama Ayariga.

It is hoped that the decisions of the Commission and the forum will go a long way to address those short-falls that make it impossible for Africa to advance after reaching the quarter-finals in such events. While we congratulate Germany for their singular example of doing the impossible by way of a European country winning the tournament in Latin America, something which has never happened in the 84-year-old history of the Mundial, it is hoped some lessons would be learnt from their long planning. God bless!