I don't think mutch has changed in the African football vis a vis the world, FIFA ranking which are based on International matches have constantly showed the top African team between 14-25 save for the era around 1994 when Naijja rose to number 5!!!

I still don't see serious regression bro, all those yeas you point to one African team doing well, the others were getting thwacked........Sebia and USA are not small in matters footbAll as you wanna put it, save for the Suarez madness in 2010 Ghana would have been the 1st AfricAn team to reach SFs of the WC.

You are in deep denial even when the facts face you squarely in the eye





Simply not true. In 1978, Tunisia were the only Africa team. In 1982 and 86 there were only two African teams. Both did very well considering that they were amateurs. Cameroon never lost a game in 1982. They actually outplayed Italy.

In 1990, Cameroon did well but Egypt certainly did not get thwacked as you claim nor did they disgrace themselves. They played Netherlands, England and Ireland and forced two draws and lost the other game only 0-1.




Serbia are currently ranked below Ghana so its hardly an upset. The last time an African team actually caused a big upset was in 2002 !



True but Naija of 1994 or Cameroon of 1990 or even Senegal of 2002 would have beaten Uruguay. Ghana in 2002 had difficulty scoring. And their penalties were so shoddy. Like they never practised.

And Uruguay is not exactly a juggernaut. They almost failed to qualify for 2014 and had to depend on playoffs


The regression is clear unless you are in denial. Another aspect where Africa has regressed is the dearth of world class players. Etoo and Drogba are the last generation of top tier strikers Africa has produced and both are in the mid 30s. Today no African is in contention to be top scorer in any of the top leagues.

And consider this. In the mid 1990s, Naija had players in every top Euro team: Juventus, Barcelona, Arsenal, Inter Milan, Monaco......
Today Naija are African champions and their top strikers play in obscure leagues in Eastern Europe.

This is the same Naija team that flopped at the Confed Cup this year. They could not beat Uruguay. So basically the African champions lost to the 5th team in CONCACAF ? Rememeber that in 1990, Cameroon beat the defending world champions top CONCACAF team who had the best player (Maradona).

I cant find the rankings. You may be right about FIFA rankings in 2006. But is Ghana beating Serbia really an upset ? Is this what passes for an African upset nowadays ? How many world class players did Serbia have ?. One can make the case that if they had a higher ranking than Ghana then back then their ranking was bogus

Think back to real upsets of previous years:

1978 : Tunisia 3 Mexico 1
1982 : Algeria 2 West Germany 1
1986: Morocco 3 Portugal 1
1990: Cameroon beats Argentina & Colombia which was very strong at the time
1994 Naija destroys every European team in their wake until Italy cheats them
2002: Senegal Upsets defending champions France and Sweden


These were real upsets where few odds makers gave the African team a chance.

I agree that Ghana are a light in the darkness. In fact Ghana is the only African team that has not regressed. Every single African team aside from Ghana and CIV has regressed badly since 2002 and before. All of them are now a pale shadow. CIV has not done anything yet. I hope they do something this time


As for Ghana you can make the case that they had more talent in the 1990s when they had Yeboah, Abedi Pele and Kwame Ayew .

very interesting game, why on earth did the Egyptians concede all those goals in the first leg.

huyu alba ni encyclopaedia ya ball!

Algeria - burkina should be interesting at least the scores are much closer, the northerners have started patiently trying to build up, and they should have scored that header.

Sweden/Portugal. The best game of the night so far. End to end stuff. Ronaldo has just scored. Both teams giving their all.

I admire Ibrahimovic a lot. An equalizer from him!!

He scores again. Sweden lead 2-1.