Back in 1990 Cameroon reached the World Cup Quarter-final, and a lot of
people were telling us what a bright future there was for African
football; people were predicting that an African team would win the
World Cup by 2000 etc.

Since then, Morocco have reached the World Cup semi-final, we've had 2
African teams that have won the Olympics, about 3 or 4 teams from Africa
have been runners-up at the Club World Cup, and that's about all the
signs of progress that African football has shown.

What's gone wrong? Why has African football basically stood still, and
made so little progress since about 1990?

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Nobody got any theories then?

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On 2024-12-01 08:21, Mark wrote:

Nobody got any theories then?

The question does lend it itself to particularly rational comment. What
is "progress" ? How can you lump all the countries of a continent as
diverse (geographically, genetically, and everything else) as Africa
into one pot. As well say why has CONCACAF not made any progress since
Costa Rica surprised everyone in 1990, and the USA and Mexico made quarterfinals ?

Countries located in Africa (and parts of countries geologically located
in Africa like the Canaries and Madeira) are producing more and more international calibre players. Just look at all the scorers in the
(UEFA) Champions' league and other top competitions. But to expect any
country within the continent to compete with the top (wealthy) nations
from Europe, as well as Brazil and Argentina, on a regular basis is to
expect too much. The countries have, in general, to deal with
infrastructure (including coaching at lower ages and levels) and
political problems, with players scattered all over the European
leagues, with top players who perhaps feel no strong affiliation with
the country they are playing for (eg. born in France or Spain or England
or Germany for example).

In addition the qualifying process in the past has been extremely harsh,
with a low probability of actually selecting the two/three/five teams
that are the strongest at the moment of the world cup. This may improve
a lot with the new qualifying system and a 48 team world cup.

Anyway, why should one expect Nigeria or Egypt or Algeria to do any
better than the USA or Mexico? The former has a very large population, a wealthy football federation, and a reasonably good professional league,
along with good facilities and a US college system that allows player development using scholarships. The latter is a football crazy nation
with a large population, a decent league, and the advantage of fairly
easy qualification for every world cup.

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It's true that African teams made great progress between 1982 and 2002
in terms of World Cup results. I too, once used to belive that Cameroon
or Nigeria would have won the World Cup by now.

Is the problem (from Africa's perspective) simply that the emergence of
good African sides like Cameroon 1990 and Nigeria 1994 coincided with a
time where European and South American football started to take
professionalism to a new level in terms of tactics, athleticism and
scouting?

So where African sides did make a good degree of progress (but from a
low starting position) Europe and South America (who were already in a
stronger position than Africa) simply progressed at a better rate?

I will still continue to be an Indomitable Lion every AFCON

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On Sun, 1 Dec 2024 17:14:30 +0000, Real_Mardin wrote:

It's true that African teams made great progress between 1982 and 2002
in terms of World Cup results. I too, once used to belive that Cameroon
or Nigeria would have won the World Cup by now.

Is the problem (from Africa's perspective) simply that the emergence of
good African sides like Cameroon 1990 and Nigeria 1994 coincided with a
time where European and South American football started to take professionalism to a new level in terms of tactics, athleticism and
scouting?

So where African sides did make a good degree of progress (but from a
low starting position) Europe and South America (who were already in a stronger position than Africa) simply progressed at a better rate?

I will still continue to be an Indomitable Lion every AFCON

.and World Cup! (sorry, accidentally hit "post" too soon!)


RM

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On 2024-12-01 09:16, MH wrote:

On 2024-12-01 08:21, Mark wrote:

Nobody got any theories then?

The question does lend it itself to particularly rational comment.

I meant does NOT lend itself

What

is "progress" ?  How can you lump all the countries of a continent as diverse (geographically, genetically, and everything else) as Africa
into one pot.   As well say why has CONCACAF not made any progress since Costa Rica surprised everyone in 1990, and the USA and Mexico made quarterfinals ?

Countries located in Africa (and parts of countries geologically located
in Africa like the Canaries and Madeira) are producing more and more international calibre players.  Just look at all the scorers in the
(UEFA) Champions' league and other top competitions.  But to expect any country within the continent to compete with the top (wealthy) nations
from Europe, as well as Brazil and Argentina, on a regular basis is to
expect too much.  The countries have, in general, to deal with infrastructure (including coaching at lower ages and levels) and
political problems, with players scattered all over the European
leagues, with top players who perhaps feel no strong affiliation with
the country they are playing for (eg. born in France or Spain or England
or Germany for example).

In addition the qualifying process in the past has been extremely harsh,
with a low probability of actually selecting the two/three/five teams
that are the strongest at the moment of the world cup.  This may improve
a lot with the new qualifying system and a 48 team world cup.

Anyway, why should one expect Nigeria or Egypt or Algeria to do any
better than the USA or Mexico? The former has a very large population, a wealthy football federation, and a reasonably good professional league,
along with good facilities and a US college system that allows player development using scholarships. The latter is a football crazy nation
with a large population, a decent league, and the advantage of fairly
easy qualification for every world cup.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)