Football has changed drastically and left Africans behind tactically. As has been pointed out, teams are now playing with 10 men behind the ball. So players who have a superb first touch and can play quick and accurate 1-2 passes inside the box and can finish accurately are the ones who are thriving. Developing these skills requires plenty of investment in youth development. Meanwhile African youth are still learning to play on dusty pitches, often barefoot and sometimes with ball ya juala.

Having said that, I don't think Africa deserves fewer slots. USA for example is in an easy qualifying region yet they could not even beat the likes of Panama and Trinidad. USA has also regressed badly.

That exit against the Russians must be painful for Spain. They played very well

Looks like Russia could defend all the way to the final

Wah! This was a major suprise

Wish SA won it in 2010!

I should have added every twenty years!

This is from the wikipedia page on the style of play of Igor Akinfeev the the Russian goalkeeper:

"In 2005, UEFA's Pavle Gognidze praised Akinfeev for being a "cool-headed" goalkeeper in spite of his young age, commenting: "On top of confidence, Akinfeev can also boast cat-like reflexes and excellent aerial ability while he is quick off his line to deal with crosses and through balls. Handy with his kicks, what makes him so remarkable for his age is his positional sense – so well developed that the ball seems drawn towards him."

These words were spoken in 2005 and they are as true today as they were 13 years ago. I had never heard of him before today but he is already my most favorite player in the world cup. That was an amazing performance against Spain. That last save will be remembered for many years to come.

That dude waving the Kenyan flag in Russia vs Spain

Reverse engineering

I see it differently. With only two slots, african teams will prepare for qualification rounds adequately, and this will be an adavantage ,when the real tournamnet starts. In most cases you have a team like Nigeria, pooled with Kenya, Sudan and maybe Tunisia. In this case,Nigeria has to only plan adequately for Tunisia, because kenyan cannot offer any competition to them with players, who party more than they train and too much miraa in their blood system. If Africa would have only two groups, or one group, and the top two qualify, nigeria would have to play Tunisia, ghana, senegal, morocco ,Egypt etc. These would even make the qualification games more interesting to watch

More like roller in chief