African Cup of Nations : What The Hell Is Going On?

I took time out from my busy schedule of pretending to work on my websites to watch Egypt demolish Algeria in, typically, controversial fashion last night.

I also caught the highlight (there was only one) of Ghana's victory over Nigeria.

And the conclusion I came to? The only consistent team in the whole competition (Egypt) aren't even going to be at the 2010 World Cup and the others are, well, either shockingly badly or surprisingly good on a match-by-match basis.

Unfortunately, one team's 'surprisingly good' has all too frequently coincided with another's 'shockingly bad'. Witness Algeria's 3-2 victory over Ivory Coast as an example.

Frankly, the 2010 Africa Cup Of Nations has left me utterly confused about the quality of African teams. But I am willing to bet that none will get further than the second round at World Cup 2010 - teams like Italy and Germany show that consistency is what wins big tournaments and none of these sides has that quality.

The Top Five Players Who Won't Be Playing At The 2010 World Cup

There's no doubt there will be some incredible talent on show at South Africa 2010, but - as with every World Cup - there are some players who are going to miss out. And here are our top five, complete with the obligatory YouTube videos showing how fantastic they are.

5: Edin Dzeko

Because Bosnia lost their play-off match against Portugal, the 2010 World Cup will be without Europe's top striker. Dzeko knocked in an amazing 26 goals in 32 games and helped propel Wolfsburg to the Bundesliga title. He would have been my each way bet for the Golden Boot if Bosnia had made it. They didn't. And here's why it's a real shame:



4: Luka Modric

I may be a little biased as Modric plays for my team, Tottenham, but the Croatia playmaker is a stunning footballer : the ideal combination of skill and creativity. I don't think it's any coincidence that his absence from the Croatia national team due to a broken leg contributed to their failure to reach the finals. Here's a little snippet of Modric genius :



3: Frederic Kanoute

At Sevilla, Kanoute has shown what he always threatened during his injury plagued years at West Ham and Tottenham and that is: he is a consistently dangerous forward. 63 goals in 133 games for the Spanish side is a testament to this. Unfortunately, he decided to represent Mali rather the country of his birth, France. Had he made a different choice, he would almost certainly be at the 2010 World Cup Finals in South Africa.



2: Andriy Arshavin

Russia and Arsenal playmaker Arshavin is currently one of the best players plying their trade in the English Premier League. He combines balance, pace and skill and has an eye for goal. And even better, you can spell his first name a different way every time you write it down. Which makes Andrei Arshavin's absence from the 2010 World Cup all the more disappointing.



1: Mohamed Aboutrika

Another guy whose name you can spell lots of different ways. For those who don't know, Aboutrika is Egypt's playmaker and is an unbelievably skillful footballer. Egypt's loss to Algeria in the play-offs means that, once again, the world won't get to see just how good this guy is. So just check out the YouTube video below and marvel :



Agree? Disagree? Let me know your thoughts.

African Qualifying Round Up

Regular readers of this blog will know that I always enjoy the African qualifying groups a great deal. This is mainly because of the big teams ability to mess things up (see Cameroon this time around and Nigeria last time out), because of the frequent accusations of collusion and cheating; and, of course, the general air of chaos that surrounds football in Africa.

So, here's a quick round up of where things stand in qualifying for South Africa 2010.

Tunisia (Group 2) and Ghana (Group 4) both look in strong positions to qualify. Ghana, on nine points and 5 clear of Mali are pretty much already there, judging by the fixtures they still have to come.

African Cup of Nations Champions Egypt, who got off to an appalling start in qualifying turned things around last week by beating Rwanda 3-0 in their Group 3 clash.

The return match with Zambia, who currently top the group, will probably decide who wins that group.

Nigeria, who are two points behind Tunisia in Group 2, should be very careful. Mainly because they have to beat the Tunisians in September, but also because football legend Pele has tipped them to reach the semi-finals of the 2010 World Cup.

Other predictions from the great man including Columbia to win the '94 World Cup Finals, China to qualify from their 2002 World Cup Group (they were bottom with 0 points and 0 goals); Argentina and France to be finalists in 2002 (neither qualified for even the second round). The list goes on and on!

Oops...I Spoke To Soon

Well, after an impressive performance against Brazil and an even more impressive performance against Italy, Egypt somehow contrived to get knocked out of the Confederations Cup by being soundly beaten by USA.

Worst still, some of the team were apparently robbed after celebrating that 1-0 win over Italy. Robbed, you say? By who?

Well, if South Africa paper Sunday World is to be believed, they were robbed by 5 hookers some of the team had decided to pick up.

In a story, rather unimaginatively titled 'Prostitutes 5, Players 0' (surely they could have come up with something better than that? ', an unnamed police officer is quoted as saying:

“We have confirmed that some of the players brought prostitutes, whom they picked up on Oxford Road [in Rosebank], to their hotel rooms and we have strong suspicions that they were cleaned out by those ladies of the night.”

Oops. Egyptian FA officials are, equally unsurprisingly, denying everything and demanding that everyone and their wife apologise.

Egypt Starting To Look Good

Yeah, I know I should have been working, but I couldn't help but watch the BBC website live coverage of the Confederations Cup match between Brazil and Egypt instead. As well, I mean.

Anyway, it finished 4-3 to Brazil and you can check out the highlights here.

Brazil just edged it, with a last minute Kaka penalty, but the most impressive thing about it was Egypt in the second half. They dominated possession, looked comfortable on the ball and midfielder Mohamed Aboutrika looked every inch the quality player that those in the know keep saying he is.

Egypt were particularly impressive, considering that the names best known to fans of the English Premier League - Mido and Amr Zaki - were both absent. Dortmund striker Mohamed Zidan was an able deputy, though.

Typically with African sides, there is always the potential for chaos just around the corner - egos, politics and personality clashes have long been a feature of Egyptian international football.

But this match showed they can really play and would be a great asset to the 2010 World Cup Finals. They need to get over their poor start to qualifying (a draw and a loss) and play more like they did against Brazil.

So, Africa...What Have You Got For Us This Time

The African qualifying groups for World Cup 2010 are always a particular favourite of mine, as they are rarely predictable and - as things get tense - there are often accusations and counter-accusations of cheating, voodoo and bribery.

Unfortunately, this time around the seeding of the teams will most likely make things a little more predictable.

The seeds for the final group stages are, somewhat predictably: Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Egypt.

Of these, Egypt has the easiest group - meeting Algeria, Rwanda and Zambia and I fully expect them to qualify for their first World Cup finals since 1990.

I am hopeful for a little bit of craziness in Nigeria's group (Group 2) as they face Kenya, Tunisia and Mozambique. If there's one thing you can be certain of, they'll make it hard work for themselves as usual.

We'll just have to see how things pan out.

All These Coaches Deserve To Reach The World Cup Finals

The bigger the business we call football has become, the less we see the type of characters that made the game so enjoyable in the past.

Luckily, there are still a few eccentric and charismatic characters around - mostly, it seems, coaching teams in Africa.

It is for this reason that this World Cup blog would very much like to see both Egypt and Ghana qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Egypt's manager Hassan Shehata once called Mido (who admittedly was playing like a slightly overweight sloth) "a donkey" and is not a man who is afraid to state his opinions on the media, fans, players...anything that takes his fancy, really.

Ghana's current coach, Claude le Roy, looks like a middle aged post-operative female-to-male transsexual (look, it's true, I just call it as I see it).

The joy of le Roy is that he spends all his time creating strange metaphors (mostly related to sex) and once described football as "a permanent orgasm".

He is another charismatic character (he once said " eloquence is the ideal G-string for people who want to hide embarrassing things about themselves.") in a game that is far from brimming over with them. For that reason, let's hope he and Ghana make it to South Africa 2010.

Of course, honourable mention must go to another coach (this time not managing an African nation) : the legendary Otto Rehhagel, manager of Greece.

Any coach who simultaneously holds the Bundesliga record for the most victories (387), most draws (205), most losses (228), the most goals scored (1473) and the most goals conceded (1142) truly deserves a place at the World Cup finals.