Welcome Back, Svennis

As you all probably know by now, ex-England and Mexico boss Sven Goran Eriksson will be the Ivory Coast manager at World Cup 2010.

I, for one, welcome him back with open arms. I always enjoyed his implacable calm, his over use of 'first half good...second half not so good' and his ability to seduce ladies of all nationalities.

And, seriously, I think he is a good manager. His reputation has been tarnished in England, where some consider him a bit of a joke and blame him for England's failure to get further than the quarter finals of major competitions.

I think this is more than a little unfair on the man.

The main charge against Eriksson is that, in 2002, when England played Brazil, he was too slow in changing tactics once Ronaldinho had been sent off.

And it is true that it took him until the 79th minute to bring on Teddy Sheringham and move to a far more attacking 3 upfront formation.

However, all the match reports clearly indicate that when Ronaldinho was sent off, England did go far more on the offensive. The thing was: most of these attacks broke down and England started to get nervous.

Bringing on Sheringham was, I think, a good attempt both to win the match and to introduce a cool head to bring calm to England. Remember the match lasted a mammoth 96 minutes and Sheringham did nearly pull England level with a drive that hit the crossbar.

To blame Eriksson for England failing to beat the eventual world Champions seems unduly harsh to me.

But, with the Ivory Coast, he really does have a job on his hands. The Ivorians Group contains both Brazil and Portugal as well as North Korea and Eriksson will do well to qualify from that lot.

He only has two friendlies before the World Cup proper and that's not nearly enough time to make a proper impression on the squad.

Who Next For The Ivory Coast

Not content with sacking a manager who lost only one match in 24, the Ivory Coast Football Federation seems to be making a bit of a meal of appointing a successor.

Yesterday, it appeared that leading candidate Guus Hiddink had been named as manager for the 2010 World Cup campaign, but today it appears that this isn't actually the case. And, in fact, there is quite a way to go in negotiations.

You would have thought that a nation that has gone through no less than no less than six coaches in under four years would be old hands at this kind of thing, wouldn't you?

That last stat is very telling, however. Well all know that Ivory Coast have some great players - Yaya Toure, Didier Drogba and others - but they always fall short. And they always will until the Ivorian FA give a coach a proper chance to build a team.

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.

Reserving Judgement on the African Teams At The World Cup

So, the African Cup of Nations is well underway and, in between pretending to do some work, I've been watching a fair bit on Eurosport TV.

And the conclusion I've come to so far: I don't think any of these teams is consistent or, frankly, good enough to even reach the quarter finals of the World Cup.

Every time a World Cup Finals comes around, there is always media speculation about the potential of an African team to do well. Even more so this time as the competition is in Africa. However, every time, the major African teams - Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon - flatter to deceive.

While all of these teams have some exceptional players, what they seem to be lacking is a sense of identity as a team. They've got the pride and the skills, but they just don't seem unified. At least, on the evidence of the AfCON so far, that's how it appears.

I'm just wondering if it's a lack of top level coaching, or if the facilities and background organisation let these teams down. Could it be that because their best players all play in Europe, there is a lack of cohesion as a national unit?

Whatever it is, I hope what I'm seeing at the Africa Cup of Nations doesn't translate into South Africa 2010 because, once again, the African sides will all get knocked out in the early stages.

Ivorian Football Officials Jailed

Following the collapse of a stadium that was 1,500 over capacity for Ivory Coast's World Cup qualifier against Malawi in March, the head of the Ivory Coast Football Federation and another man, who was responsible for ticketing at the match, have both been jailed.

20 people died and over 130 were injured following a stampede caused by overcrowding and poor safety measures.

While this is clearly a tragedy, it's good to see that people are being held responsible for the disaster and that the Ivory Coast takes such matters seriously. In the year that commemorates the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, it's a more than a shame that UK authorities didn't choose to do the same there and just swept the whole thing - particularly the role of the police - under the carpet.