glorygloryeze
Ian Walker
Braineclipse Thanks for taking the time to write; i'll reply by each paragraph
That indeed would be very clear progression, but how do you suppose the continent would go from a team like Cameroon in 1990 (fresh, unknown, good skills, right time) to being on a par with those big guns you mention, who have DECADES of football playing experience, tradition, history and (prob most important) long standing infrastructure, i.e. established professional leagues where both homegrown and foreign talent play professionally and where experience coaches are present? If professional leagues on par with even the South American ones existed in Africa i could understand there even being an expectation for a 'Brazil, Argentina, Germany etc' to emerge. But there isn't, so this is just an unrealistic expectation in my view. I mean look at the Premier League; one of, if not the best league in the world and the national team have not been close to become a power like the sides you mention for nearly 50 years.
Taking this kind of analysis further, couldn't one say the same about European teams, apart from France and Spain, not being further ahead than where they were in 1990? It's very difficult for any team to make quarter finals let alone countries who have not traditionally taken part in World Cups routinely (which if you look at the qualification records of most of the African sides, is not as often as can be compared to other countries who are their effectively present in every tournament). What exactly would 'progressing further' entail? Being a last-minute spot-kick away from the semi-final? If Gyan had scored that penalty at the last world cup, would that change your mind? In fact, apart from Brazil, have South American sides progressed?
Again, I think expectations like this are rather random and based on pure romantics; hell i'm a romantic and i'd LOVE for there to have been an African side in a world cup final, but as i said above about professional infrastructure (or lackof), realistically i don't see how actually one can have expected such things to happen without the time, history, infrastructure etc of the other big guns. In fact, I could ask whether anyone expected that Argentina would not play a final or semi-final since 1990 and whether they would be surprised? Have Argentina underperformed?
Again, even if the social-economic situation may be similar in some countries to Brazil and Argentina, there are no leagues that are comparable.
In fact, take Nigeria, the most populous African country by far and also possibly the most football-obsessed does not have the grassroots and professional infrastructure that, say, Brazil and Argentina would have in South America yet. Bear in mind also that experience on the world football stage is very much limited for most African countries in comparison to those two South American big guns. They and several other South and Central American can call upon coaches who have played and coached for several decades; that's a wealth of footballing experience and know-how that Africa (no matter how much we want to romanticize otherwise) simply cannot replicate at this time yet.
Hopefully Stephen Keshi can signal a change in emphasis of the African FAs to use good local coaches who, like him, have experience of coaching and managing both locally and internationally. This in the long term, especially in the absence of finances like that in Japan and South Korea who have recently set-up billion dollar professional leagues, is Africa's best chance of bridging the existing skills/tactical/experience gap.
That indeed would be very clear progression, but how do you suppose the continent would go from a team like Cameroon in 1990 (fresh, unknown, good skills, right time) to being on a par with those big guns you mention, who have DECADES of football playing experience, tradition, history and (prob most important) long standing infrastructure, i.e. established professional leagues where both homegrown and foreign talent play professionally and where experience coaches are present? If professional leagues on par with even the South American ones existed in Africa i could understand there even being an expectation for a 'Brazil, Argentina, Germany etc' to emerge. But there isn't, so this is just an unrealistic expectation in my view. I mean look at the Premier League; one of, if not the best league in the world and the national team have not been close to become a power like the sides you mention for nearly 50 years.
Taking this kind of analysis further, couldn't one say the same about European teams, apart from France and Spain, not being further ahead than where they were in 1990? It's very difficult for any team to make quarter finals let alone countries who have not traditionally taken part in World Cups routinely (which if you look at the qualification records of most of the African sides, is not as often as can be compared to other countries who are their effectively present in every tournament). What exactly would 'progressing further' entail? Being a last-minute spot-kick away from the semi-final? If Gyan had scored that penalty at the last world cup, would that change your mind? In fact, apart from Brazil, have South American sides progressed?
Again, I think expectations like this are rather random and based on pure romantics; hell i'm a romantic and i'd LOVE for there to have been an African side in a world cup final, but as i said above about professional infrastructure (or lackof), realistically i don't see how actually one can have expected such things to happen without the time, history, infrastructure etc of the other big guns. In fact, I could ask whether anyone expected that Argentina would not play a final or semi-final since 1990 and whether they would be surprised? Have Argentina underperformed?
Again, even if the social-economic situation may be similar in some countries to Brazil and Argentina, there are no leagues that are comparable.
In fact, take Nigeria, the most populous African country by far and also possibly the most football-obsessed does not have the grassroots and professional infrastructure that, say, Brazil and Argentina would have in South America yet. Bear in mind also that experience on the world football stage is very much limited for most African countries in comparison to those two South American big guns. They and several other South and Central American can call upon coaches who have played and coached for several decades; that's a wealth of footballing experience and know-how that Africa (no matter how much we want to romanticize otherwise) simply cannot replicate at this time yet.
Hopefully Stephen Keshi can signal a change in emphasis of the African FAs to use good local coaches who, like him, have experience of coaching and managing both locally and internationally. This in the long term, especially in the absence of finances like that in Japan and South Korea who have recently set-up billion dollar professional leagues, is Africa's best chance of bridging the existing skills/tactical/experience gap.
