As we all know this World Cup is the first ever held in the continent of Africa. The South African supporters and people have been amazing.
Unfortunately for the people of South Africa their team has exited the competition, despite beating France 2-1 in their final group game.
Spirited
The South African team showed a lot of heart and passion but in the end went out the tournament on goal difference. The South African’s became the first host nation not to make it into the last 16. Bafana Bafana wasn’t the only African side to go out the competition early either.
Strugglers
In fact most of the continents teams are heading home early. The likes of Ivory Coast and Nigeria have players playing in the top flights of the best European leagues. Yet these teams have struggled to make an impact on the tournament.
Ivory Coast is in the group of death and need an incredible turnaround of goal difference to qualify for the last 16. They have been hampered by the fact that star striker Didier Drogba has had to wear a plaster on his broken elbow.
It all could have been so different for Nigeria had striker Yakubu not missed an open goal in last game against South Korea. The Everton striker has a superb goal scoring record at both club and international level but his miss will go down as one of the worse ever. He will now have to live with being on every football blooper DVD ever made.
Decent
Algeria made a decent fist of their World Cup as I don’t think expectations were that high for the Desert Foxes. It seemed they were just happy to be at the tournament. Their opening game against Slovenia resulted in a 1-0 defeat but they were reduced to ten men and the game could have gone either way.
They claimed a credible 0-0 draw in their second game against underachieving England. They also lost 1-0 in injury-time to the USA in the last group game. In the end they lacked the quality necessary to progress into the knockout stages.
Cameroon have been one of the stronger African nations at World Cup’s past but have struggled in group E. They lost 1-0 to Japan in their first game, despite having the better of the Asian side. They then faced Denmark in a superb game but lost 2-1 to the Scandinavians. Their performances weren’t that bad but they lacked a killer edge in front of goal.
They face group leaders Holland in their final group game knowing that they will be going home whatever the outcome. They too have players from top sides such as striker Samuel Eto’o of European champions Inter. The remainder of the squad are based in Europe’s other top leagues. Their group was not the hardest and I’ve been disappointed by the Indomitable Lions.
Continuity
A common denominator in the Ivory Coast and Nigeria strugglers is that they sacked their bosses a few months before the tournament started. It didn’t help either side’s preparations.
Although Swedes Lars Lagerback and Sven Goran-Eriksson are good coaches they didn’t have enough time to get to know their players. How can a manager prepare a team for a World Cup in such a short period of time?
Last Hope
The only African country to make it into the last 16 is Ghana. They may have lost their last group game against Germany 1-0 but they have impressed me so far. In the first half they could have taken the lead and probably produced the best 45 minutes of football from an African team at the World Cup.
The Ghana team seem to have no sense of fear. They have a good mix of experienced and bright young players in their squad. They are now carrying the whole of Africa’s hopes at the World Cup. I just hope that the younger players are not overawed by the knockout stages. They face a mouthwatering last 16 clash with the USA.
Will Ghana reach the quarter-finals of the World Cup?
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