Africa’s best soccer teams compete for Nations Cup

ThisDay - 2010-01-04

EAST African countries –Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi – will be watching from the sidelines as the 27th edition of the African Nations Cup rages on in Angola.

From Sunday, January 10 through January 31, sixteen best African soccer nations will battle it out for the continent’s soccer supremacy with Cote d’Ivoire, who are currently touring Tanzania, and Ghana tipped as hot favourites.

Unfortunately, none of the five East African teams will be in Angola because they all failed to qualify for the finals as it has been the case for the past six years (Kenya and Rwanda last featured in the finals in 2004).

Apart from Kenya and Rwanda, who were eliminated in the final phase of the 2010 World Cup/Nations Cup qualifiers, the rest were disgracefully kicked out in the initial stages.

Tanzania, for instance, failed to impress in a group that also consisted of minnows Mauritius and Cape Verde Islands, thus allowing Cameroon an easy passage to the final phase and ultimately to Angola.

So far, only Uganda have impressed in the Nations Cup finals, having reached the final in their debut appearance in 1978.

Kenya have qualified for the finals five times while Tanzania and Rwanda have reached the finals only once. Burundi have yet to make their impact in the tournament and are still struggling to reach that stage.

Harambee Stars were the first team from the region to qualify for the finals in 1972. They repeated the feat in 1988, 1990, 1992 and 2004.

However, Uganda set a record when they cruised to the 1978 final only to lose 2-0 to hosts Ghana at Accra Sports Stadium on March 16. Both goals were scored by Opoku Afriyie in the 38th and 64th minutes.

Then only eight teams took part in the finals. The others were Nigeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Congo, Zambia and Upper Volta.

The Cranes humbled Congo 3-1 and Morocco 3-0 before losing 3-1 to Tunisia on their way to the semi-finals where they knocked out Nigeria 2-1.

Tanzania’s sole appearance in the finals was in 1980 in Nigeria. They, too, were among eight teams that assembled in the West African nation for the finals.

Taifa Stars were placed in Group A in Lagos along with Egypt, Cote d’Ivoire and hosts Nigeria. Group B in Ibadan consisted of Ghana, Algeria, Morocco and Guinea.

Taifa Stars started their campaign with a 3-1 defeat to Nigeria, faltered again 2-1 to Egypt before drawing 1-1 with Cote d’Ivoire. They were thus eliminated in the group preliminaries.

Nigeria won their first Nations Cup trophy after beating Algeria 3-0 in the final at the National Stadium in Lagos.

Jacob ’Ghost’ Mulee became the first Kenyan coach to take Harambee Stars to their first Nations Cup finals in 12 years in Tunisia in 2004. He had just replaced sacked German coach Reinhard Fabisch, who had famously advised Kenya’s football chiefs to hire Jesus Christ as their next coach.

Kenya were placed in Group B together with Mali, Senegal and Burkina Faso. Harambee Stars again failed to go beyond the group preliminaries after losing 3-1 to Mali and 3-0 to Senegal before thrashing Burkina Faso 3-0.

Rwanda were in Group A along with Tunisia, Guinea and DR Congo. Like Harambee Stars, the Wasps were also eliminated in the group preliminaries after losing to Tunisia 2-1, drawing 1-1 with Guinea and beating DR Congo 1-0.

Tunisia emerged champions after beating Morocco 2-1 at Stade 7 Novembre in Rades.

RICH HISTORY

The Nations Cup is the main international competition in Africa. Created in 1957 with only three teams participating, it is now composed of sixteen teams vying for the trophy every two years.

After 26 editions, Egypt are by far the most successful country, winning the trophy six times. Ghana and Cameroon are close behind with four trophies each. The Pharaohs have a good reason to have been this successful though, as they have hosted the competition four times and won three of their trophies (1959, 1986, 2006) at home.

The Nations Cup has a very rich history which blends in perfectly with post-colonial Africa and the political and social heritage of the continent. The first-ever edition was supposed to be the gathering of four teams (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and South Africa) but as the South African government, still in the heart of Apartheid, refused to see a mixed team defend its colours, the other teams excluded them from the tournament.

Egypt beat Sudan in the semis and humbled Ethiopia 4-0 in the final. After six days and two games, their first trophy was going back home to Cairo with them.

In the second edition, hosted and won by the Egyptians, the subtlety was very political. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, after incorporating Syria into Egypt and thus creating the United Arab Republic, made his country play under those colours.

Ethiopia, co-founder of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), only claimed their first trophy in 1962, at home. This was the first African Nations Cup after independence for most African countries.

But it was only the subsequent competition in Ghana that saw newly independent countries (Ghana and Nigeria) take advantage of the competition. Ghana, then ruled by Panafricanist President Kwame Nkrumah, who strongly believed in football’s people gathering and ideological propaganda abilities, won the next two editions (1963, 1965) before Nkrumah was ousted by a military coup in 1966.

But his example was emulated pretty quickly afterwards and in 1968 in Ethiopia, Zaire’s President Mobutu made sure his players were given the best possible conditions and also was seminal in making sure the best exports (most of them played in Belgium at the time) came back to defend the country’s colours.

Zaire impressed and won the tournament in Addis Ababa. They would repeat the feat six years later in Egypt where, in the outcome of the October War, they won against Zambia in a two-legged final played in front of less than 300 paying supporters.

In 1970, Sudan became the last of the founding countries to put their name on the trophy by winning against Ghana. Convinced the referee was partial to the victorious hosts, the Ghanaian delegation refused to take part in the closing ceremony and were asked to leave the country immediately as a result.

The Ghanaians would come back in 1978 and 1982 to take the trophy home. In the 1982 squad of the Black Stars was a young seventeen-year-old called Abedi Pele. That edition was organised in Libya, a country which had never participated in the competition before and will host again in 2014. The attitude of the public made it quite impossible to follow while the style of play was stellar.

The big change in the competition happened in 1982 when the Confederation of African Football (CAF) decided not to restrict the number of professional players to two anymore. This would help new countries such as Cameroon, who were already heavily present in Europe, to win both in 1984 and 1988 before impressing football fans around the globe at the 1990 World Cup.

The inclusion of professional players made the competition a scouter’s dream, showcasing talented players who would be available on the cheap.

The African Cup in 1992 in Senegal marked a new day for African football, with new heavyweights taking over and basically shaping Africa’s domination in youth football from then on. By allowing much more interaction between their expatriates and the organisation of local competitions, CAF created an environment extremely conducive to helping young talent grow.

The Nations Cup became an unmissable international sporting event as the African players started gaining more exposure and becoming global superstars in their own right. That helped to make FIFA take notice and offer more sports to CAF-affiliated countries at global competitions.

Nigeria went on to win the 1994 African Nations Cup, before having a respectable World Cup in the United States and topping off a positive few years with a win at the 96 Atlanta Olympics. Cameroon would follow in their footsteps by winning the following Olympics in Sydney.

The 1996 Nations Cup was a special one to say the least. With Apartheid over and President Nelson Mandela in place, South Africa came back to international football and organised their first tournament. Bafana Bafana beat Tunisia in the final to the delight of millions of fans worldwide, clearly in awe of such a symbol which would culminate in the South Africans organising the 2010 World Cup.

Cameroon and Egypt have kept a hegemony over African football in the 21st century thus far. Cameroon won back to back titles in 2000 and 2002 and made it to the final in 2008 while the Egyptians equalled their winning feats in 2006 and 2008.

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Africa’s best soccer teams compete for Nations Cup

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