African teams in Qatar

adexkola

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Regarding the quality of African representation at the WC, I think the current qualification system doesn't expose the cream of the crop to serious competition enough. You play in groups that usually contain fodder teams mostly from East/Southern Africa (no offense guys, love y'all), and it all comes down to a two legged tie to determine qualification. Doesn't expose top teams across the continent to better competition (steel sharpening steel).

So, with the WC expanding to include 9 teams from Mama Africa, I submit the following proposal to select the best out of 54, and ensure they are hardened and battle ready:

Seed teams based on a combination of the following:
1. Performance at the last WC
2. Performance at the last 2 AFCONs
3. Performance in CAF qualifiers

Divide the teams into 3 categories:

1: Teams ranked 1-6
2: Teams ranked 7-16
3: Teams ranked 15-54/55/5X (depending on what happens with Somaliland/Western Sahara republic/wherever)

How does it go?

A: teams in group 3 compete such that 10 countries come out.

B: these teams are seeded against teams in group 2 in 2 round home and away ties.

C: the 10 winners from B are combined with the 6 teams in group 1. They are divided into two by seed.

Each team in the group plays every other team in the group, home and away, for a total of 14 games. 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 for a loss. Ties are determined by factors like away wins, goals scored, and so on.

At the end, the top 4 from each group book their ticket to the world cup. The 5th team from each group play a final match in a neutral venue to determine the last representative to the WC.

This ensures the following:

1. Teams are rewarded for great performances at the WC and AFCON by higher seeds
2. Quality African teams are forced to improve their base level by regular exposure to the best teams on the continent. You can't get by on using local players to coast through weak groups before recalling the big guns for big ties. Imagine a team that comes through a group containing Mali, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Gabon and Guinea?
3. It provides incentive for worse teams on the continent to improve. Currently the 15-16 teams are Guinea and Zambia. It wouldn't be pretty at first, but eventually regular exposure to better competition will hopefully force them to improve.
4. It removes the currently stochastic nature of qualification, or moves it down the aisle. Mali were eliminated by Tunisia primarily because of a boneheaded error by a defender. Burkina Faso deserve a fair shot at the WC one day. A league format removes that volatility in results.
 

antohan

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I hope Ghana destroy Uruguay, and the camera pans to the stands and we see Asamoah Gyan celebrating with a giant foam hand.
The only thing that could stop Ghana is thinking like this. They played well against Korea, can play fast-paced and are full of energy.

Uruguay are in disarray, struggling to shelve the old, players arguing with manager over tactics, most creative player benched, banking on Nuñez to be a 100M player (NT manager gave him his debut so seems to love the notion he was the genius that spotted him).

They just need to show up and win. Make it some sort of war to avenge a handball (seriously? wtf?) and the outcome is nowhere near as clear to me.
 

antohan

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Regarding the quality of African representation at the WC, I think the current qualification system doesn't expose the cream of the crop to serious competition enough. You play in groups that usually contain fodder teams mostly from East/Southern Africa (no offense guys, love y'all), and it all comes down to a two legged tie to determine qualification. Doesn't expose top teams across the continent to better competition (steel sharpening steel).

So, with the WC expanding to include 9 teams from Mama Africa, I submit the following proposal to select the best out of 54, and ensure they are hardened and battle ready:

Seed teams based on a combination of the following:
1. Performance at the last WC
2. Performance at the last 2 AFCONs
3. Performance in CAF qualifiers

Divide the teams into 3 categories:

1: Teams ranked 1-6
2: Teams ranked 7-16
3: Teams ranked 15-54/55/5X (depending on what happens with Somaliland/Western Sahara republic/wherever)

How does it go?

A: teams in group 3 compete such that 10 countries come out.

B: these teams are seeded against teams in group 2 in 2 round home and away ties.

C: the 10 winners from B are combined with the 6 teams in group 1. They are divided into two by seed.

Each team in the group plays every other team in the group, home and away, for a total of 14 games. 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 for a loss. Ties are determined by factors like away wins, goals scored, and so on.

At the end, the top 4 from each group book their ticket to the world cup. The 5th team from each group play a final match in a neutral venue to determine the last representative to the WC.

This ensures the following:

1. Teams are rewarded for great performances at the WC and AFCON by higher seeds
2. Quality African teams are forced to improve their base level by regular exposure to the best teams on the continent. You can't get by on using local players to coast through weak groups before recalling the big guns for big ties. Imagine a team that comes through a group containing Mali, Nigeria, Algeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Gabon and Guinea?
3. It provides incentive for worse teams on the continent to improve. Currently the 15-16 teams are Guinea and Zambia. It wouldn't be pretty at first, but eventually regular exposure to better competition will hopefully force them to improve.
4. It removes the currently stochastic nature of qualification, or moves it down the aisle. Mali were eliminated by Tunisia primarily because of a boneheaded error by a defender. Burkina Faso deserve a fair shot at the WC one day. A league format removes that volatility in results.
Sounds great as a way to use the four years between World Cups and invest them in continuous improvement.

The main issue you will have is calling up players and subjecting them to a gruelling fixture. The logistics, organisation and budget commitments involved are probably beyond what the region's FAs can muster.

As you know, it's not Europe where you quickly jet anywhere. For a long time in South America we couldn't get European-based players to fly over. It was a mix of cheapskate FAs paying Economy and clubs clearly expressing their discomfort with players returning all broken up. Clubs would be hellbent on players declaring for European nations, already bad enough with ACN.

Unfortunately what drives this are regional majorities and having 50+ countries sharing limited resources and so few getting the ultimate prize of qualifying... I can see why the majority would refuse to invest.

Took us 1-2 decades to get that sorted out reasonably well in Conmebol, and that in a region with 10 countries including three that have won the World Cup and with half of them (4+1) potentially qualifying.
 

The Corinthian

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The only thing that could stop Ghana is thinking like this. They played well against Korea, can play fast-paced and are full of energy.

Uruguay are in disarray, struggling to shelve the old, players arguing with manager over tactics, most creative player benched, banking on Nuñez to be a 100M player (NT manager gave him his debut so seems to love the notion he was the genius that spotted him).

They just need to show up and win. Make it some sort of war to avenge a handball (seriously? wtf?) and the outcome is nowhere near as clear to me.
feck that. I want Ghana to rub it in if they win.
 

antohan

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feck that. I want Ghana to rub it in if they win.
Ah, you mean after? Meh, we made a semifinal, a well-deserved one in which we unfortunately missed Suárez (suspended) and another three injured players. One completed the ET with a broken metatarsal, wonder how you get those? Another had concussion from the football equivalent of a spear-tackle while heading a ball, also stayed on the pitch and finished the game: he was the one that somehow committed a foul while standing two metres away from the player that dove for the non-existent freekick that after two offsides resulted in a handball. Shame about all that, at full strength we could have made the final and then it's everyone's guess.

What Ghana could take away they already did in that same game. Round of 16? Been there, it's overrated, more so when you have a team that you know is going nowhere. Not much to rub in really.
 

MegadrivePerson

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Why would Ghana be after revenge? They were awarded a penalty and Suarez was sent off! If Suarez had hand balled it and got away with it, I'd understand.
 

The Original

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Why would Ghana be after revenge? They were awarded a penalty and Suarez was sent off! If Suarez had hand balled it and got away with it, I'd understand.
It was the last minute of the game. The red card was of no impact in that sense, and a penalty in a difficult moment like that is not comparable to a certain goal.
 

Pintu

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With 4 games won they have already equaled the highest number of matches won by African teams at a World Cup (2010).
Now 5 wins for Africa…. Even Tunisia, the weakest side among the 5 IMO, won a game and would have deserved to qualify.
 

2cents

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So happy for Morocco.
 

Annihilate Now!

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Morocco are a very decent side.

Hopefully Ghana can make it through. Three African sides in the knockouts would be great.
 

RedDevilMachine

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They were disastrous in 2018 World Cup with none making to the knockout round, made up for it this time. 2 made it and potentially Ghana too.
 

Redlyn

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I am seeing all these articles how Suarez refuses to apologize. Why would he. He did the right thing that every player in his position should absolutely do and take one for the team.
 

Gringo

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I am seeing all these articles how Suarez refuses to apologize. Why would he. He did the right thing that every player in his position should absolutely do and take one for the team.
The amount of people who share this view baffles me. Intentional handball is something I've never ever thought about doing while playing football in my life. I actually admire how brazen it is to think of doing it in a split second from pure instinct.
 

The Corinthian

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So happy Morocco made it through. Such a likeable team (tbh all of the African teams are). I think Moroccan can go quite deep into the competition.
 

Rasendori

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Speaking from mainly a South African POV, many of our talents disappear even before they're able to showcase their ability. Poverty, crime and economic turmoil (record high unemployment, corruption etc.) in this country (and we're still one of the more fortunate countries on the continent) means a lot of our talents are filtered out to crime/other things before they even get going.

Our legacy of apartheid also makes it difficult to pursue a good living (education) and football at the same time, whilst cricket and rugby you are basically forced to go through the tertiary level education system to turn pro. (Tbf, i think football is like that in a lot of the developing world).

Overall, football is under invested in here at grassroots (corruption being a major contributor), compared to the other sports (we compete at the very top of rugby and cricket - sort of, still). A lack of infrastructure for development, malnutrition etc. only exacerbates this. I remember being at school and being forced to play rugby, hockey (outfield) and cricket, versus football. I needed to pursue my love of football at club level, outside of my school hours/commitments etc.

I know we had a very good team over the decades but the country has, overall, just become a bigger struggle. Even with someone like Motsepe investing in the local league and some of our teams doing well continentally, we don't seemingly export enough players to compete in Europe and the gulf in quality in our local leagues versus the other top leagues are just way too big.

Even with the 2 "major" sports in this country - rugby and cricket. You find more and more players going to play abroad now for the money, as the cashflow and sponsors have dried up here, even for them! We used to have a rule where we wouldn't pick overseas based players for rugby/cricket sides, but that has also long since changed (I think the same applied/applies to the All Blacks, as an example). Why would companies sponsor local sports when half the population are starving (bit of a hyperbole but not far off)? Simply put, money isn't here and on the rest of the continent.
I vaguely remember Orlando Pirates toying with Spurs, and the English pundits taking multiple digs at South Africa for "showboating". Makhanya was a player I was particularly impressed with.


From the East African POV, Uganda just won the U20 CECAFA last month. Hopefully it will serve as a springboard for certain players to attract attention at AFCON U20. I was pleasantly surprised to see the diverse number of Uganda's goal scorers in the CECAFA competition.
 

Redlyn

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The amount of people who share this view baffles me. Intentional handball is something I've never ever thought about doing while playing football in my life. I actually admire how brazen it is to think of doing it in a split second from pure instinct.
Why is it different from cynical foul? The fact you wouldn't do it is neither here nor there.

There is a price to pay and it's a red card (and penno) in case of a deliberate hand ball denying a goal scoring opportunity. It's rather simple.
 
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antohan

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The amount of people who share this view baffles me. Intentional handball is something I've never ever thought about doing while playing football in my life. I actually admire how brazen it is to think of doing it in a split second from pure instinct.
So you are the gold standard for what someone does on a football pitch? Here you have another lad with a bit more experience than you. Or maybe not?

 

galwayfa

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If I was in Suarezs position, I would definitely have done it, Newcastle player a few years ago who did, no one talks about that,
 

mikeyt

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Brilliant that the African teams are doing better this time around and a couple are genuinely decent teams. What's good to see is outside of the 5 that qualified there are still the likes of Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria and Ivory Coast who aren't there. A bit of depth going forward hopefully.
 

Rood

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Morocco ended 36 years of World Cup hurt by progressing to the knockout stage - then set their sights on going all the way.

Walid Regragui's men edged past Canada 2-1 to finish top of Group F, the first African team to achieve the feat since the brilliant Nigeria side from 1998.

The Atlas Lions were unbeaten in their three games, with a goalless opening draw against Croatia - who finished second - followed up by one of the shocks of the tournament as they beat Belgium.

In the post-match news conference, Regragui and man of the match Achraf Hakimi were applauded into the room by journalists from their country.

But it was a question from a Libyan journalist which sent chuckles around the room and one which Regragui did not shy away from answering.

"Do you think you are likely to win the World Cup?" he asked........


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63829153
 

Glorio

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That aspect of African teams benefiting from players born and bred in France is often swept under the rug.
I'm unsure what your point is. Are they not bonafide citizens of the African teams? Is that not their heritage?
 

kouroux

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I'm unsure what your point is. Are they not bonafide citizens of the African teams? Is that not their heritage?
They are, it's just that the argument is often talked about France benefiting from the various origins of players available when African teams also do it with players born and bred in France.
 

Rood

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Unfortunate for Morocco to get Spain - not much of a reward for finishing top of the group
 

Traub

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They are, it's just that the argument is often talked about France benefiting from the various origins of players available when African teams also do it with players born and bred in France.
Yeah, the difference is France can do it due to colonialism and slavery, so the source of their players is a bit more suspect.
 

Foxbatt

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Yeah, the difference is France can do it due to colonialism and slavery, so the source of their players is a bit more suspect.
Well put. These African players won't be in France without the slavery and colonialism. If all those players eligible to play for African countries did not choose France, I don't think France would have won much.
 

Rood

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Yeah, the difference is France can do it due to colonialism and slavery, so the source of their players is a bit more suspect.
Well put. These African players won't be in France without the slavery and colonialism. If all those players eligible to play for African countries did not choose France, I don't think France would have won much.
Well they did choose France and it was their own choice, not like they were forced or anything, so I don't see why it's 'suspect'

And conversely we now see several African teams making use of their French (and other countries) born players so it's all good
 

kouroux

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Yeah, the difference is France can do it due to colonialism and slavery, so the source of their players is a bit more suspect.
History is what it is sadly, cannot change it so I will never the subtle criticism/jealousy France always face when it comes to having many players of African origins. The same shit has been said for decades, it is really time to change the broken record. For the record, France didn't force anyone to play for them, it's a mutually beneficial relationship.
 

kouroux

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Well put. These African players won't be in France without the slavery and colonialism. If all those players eligible to play for African countries did not choose France, I don't think France would have won much.
But they did so the point is moot. Everyone is benefiting, not just France as a national team.
 

Pronewbie

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History is what it is sadly, cannot change it so I will never the subtle criticism/jealousy France always face when it comes to having many players of African origins. The same shit has been said for decades, it is really time to change the broken record. For the record, France didn't force anyone to play for them, it's a mutually beneficial relationship.
I agree that countries like France are able to better develop talents because of the conditions and infrastructure in place.

However, colonialism, exploitation and insidious regime change operations by western countries continue in return for a couple of concerts and virtue signaling. Please don't talk of it as if it's the past. Just look at the imperialist money policies that continue and what the likes of Mali, Somalia and Ethiopia had to do recently to kick foreign interference out of their country.
 

Pintu

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Morocco ended 36 years of World Cup hurt by progressing to the knockout stage - then set their sights on going all the way.

Walid Regragui's men edged past Canada 2-1 to finish top of Group F, the first African team to achieve the feat since the brilliant Nigeria side from 1998.

The Atlas Lions were unbeaten in their three games, with a goalless opening draw against Croatia - who finished second - followed up by one of the shocks of the tournament as they beat Belgium.

In the post-match news conference, Regragui and man of the match Achraf Hakimi were applauded into the room by journalists from their country.

But it was a question from a Libyan journalist which sent chuckles around the room and one which Regragui did not shy away from answering.

"Do you think you are likely to win the World Cup?" he asked........


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/63829153
Regragui looked at Hakimi and smiled before replying: "We set ourselves an objective to give everything we have and get out of the group stages.

"After that, why not? Aim for the sky. We need to change our mentality and we will be a difficult team to beat.

"Why not dream about winning that trophy? As African teams we need to set this objective."

I am not sure about this answer… Nothing wrong with ambition and dreams but it sounds like he’s putting himself and fellow African managers under unnecessary pressure…
 

kouroux

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I agree that countries like France are able to better develop talents because of the conditions and infrastructure in place.

However, colonialism, exploitation and insidious regime change operations by western countries continue in return for a couple of concerts and virtue signaling. Please don't talk of it as if it's the past. Just look at the imperialist money policies that continue and what the likes of Mali, Somalia and Ethiopia had to do recently to kick foreign interference out of their country.
I'm strictly talking about football. You're going on another subject entirely. I live in Africa and have dual citizenship, I don't think anyone can teach me anything on the subject
 

Bosnian_fan

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You can talk strictly about football, but it will mean ignoring other factors which contributed a lot. France are obviously not the only ones guilty, there are such players in Portugal, England, Netherlands etc.
 

The Corinthian

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Ah, you mean after? Meh, we made a semifinal, a well-deserved one in which we unfortunately missed Suárez (suspended) and another three injured players. One completed the ET with a broken metatarsal, wonder how you get those? Another had concussion from the football equivalent of a spear-tackle while heading a ball, also stayed on the pitch and finished the game: he was the one that somehow committed a foul while standing two metres away from the player that dove for the non-existent freekick that after two offsides resulted in a handball. Shame about all that, at full strength we could have made the final and then it's everyone's guess.

What Ghana could take away they already did in that same game. Round of 16? Been there, it's overrated, more so when you have a team that you know is going nowhere. Not much to rub in really.
It's like a maths problem and you get the right answer but the wrong method. Uruguay are still going home!