Round up Africa World Cup

Well, that’s it. The first World Cup on the African continent is over, and in the final it was clear that Spain deserved to win it, becoming the ninth winner of a World Cup, the first side to win the tournament after losing their opening game (1-0 against Swizerland), the first European side to World Cup outside of Europe, the lowest-scoring winner of a World Cup so far (they scored only eight goals in the tournament) and the first winner of a World Cup in Africa. But what of the African teams?

With six African nations competing, the prospects seemed good for at least a couple of them to make an impression in this year’s tournament: but one by one, it became clear that this was not to be their time.

The hosts were unlucky to concede late in their opening game, earning them a draw that proved insufficient to propel them out of the group stage even after their 2-1 victory over France later on.

A promising Côte D’Ivoire got drawn in a “Group of Death” for the second tournament running and were edged out of a second-round place on goal difference after Portugal blasted North Korea 7-0.

Algeria, probably lucky to be in the tournament to start with thanks to their surprise 1-0 victory over African Cup of Nations holders Egypt in Omdurman, showed impressive team spirit at times and held a sub-par England side to a goalless draw but still proved unable to record a debut World Cup victory.

Cameroon fell victim to their own poor preparation and infighting, losing all of their group-stage games in spite of being Africa’s highest-ranked team and boasting the prodigious talent of Samuel Eto’o, among others.

Nigeria had high hopes and high expectations coming into the tournament, but a poor run of form, poor discipline against Greece and some desperately bad luck against South Korea led to a first-round dismissal that Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan called an embarrassment to the nation.

All of which leaves us with Ghana, who this year equalled the best previous result for an African nation in reaching the quarter-finals, after beating the USA 2-1 in the last eight. The real injustice here is, of course, that they did enough to be the first African nation to reach the semifinals, and would have been there if it were not for a blatant, cynical handball on the Uruguayan goal line from Luis Suarez to deny them a last-minute winner. Asamoah Gyan missed the resulting spot-kick, and there was not enough time left in the game for Suarez’s red card to make any difference: In the resulting penalty shootout, the South Americans took the game 4-2.

Regardless of the outcome for the host continent however, the tournament’s organisation has been widely recognised as a success story. South Africa has shown that it can host a major international sporting event without any major problems, giving itself- and the continent of Africa- some excellent positive publicity in the process as well as attracting and successfully managing huge numbers of tourists from all around the world. The next question is- where do they go from here?

The infrastructure improvements and sporting arenas constructed in order to make this World Cup possible have the potential to provide a real benefit to South Africa, but a great many of the jobs created in their construction and operation for the tournament will now, in the short term at least, be lost as the howls of the ubiquitous vuvuzelas fall silent and the stadia lie empty; waiting, perhaps, for the next major sporting event to visit this country.

The World Cup has been a success story so far, but it must be made clear that this is only the beginning. Its legacy in South Africa will be judged, in the long run, by its lasting effect on the nation and not just what happened over five weeks in 2010. The future holds promise, but we are not there yet.

Algeria

Algeria’s football team, “Les Fennecs” (The Desert Foxes), was the first African side to beat a European national team at the World Cup when they defeated West Germany 2-1 in 1982. Since then they’ve had a turbulent path, qualifying for the finals this year in a huge playoff with reigning African Cup of Nations holders Egypt only to suffer a disappointing 1-0 defeat in their first game of the tournament against a poorly-regarded Slovenia team.

The remaining teams in Group C are England and the USA. Unfortunately for the Algerian side, both of these opponents will be fielding stronger teams than the Slovenia side that eventually made a shot count on Sunday, and while “Les Fennecs” did appear to be slightly better on the pitch against Slovenia until they had a man sent off, they are likely to struggle against the two group favourites.

On the other hand, the Algerians have shown a flair for taking on “tougher” opposition recently- notably they were semifinalists in the African Cup of Nations, and beat the eventual winners Egypt in order to secure their place at the World Cup finals.

Slovenia have been to the World Cup once before, in 2002, and in spite of avoiding defeat completely in their qualifying campaign they failed to score a point in the group stages of that tournament. This time around they finished second in their qualifying group to Slovakia, and won the drawn two-leg playoff against Russia by virtue of scoring one of their goals away from home. This year they have already bettered their previous record, recording a first World Cup victory as well as their first group-stage points. Given the strength of opposition in Group C, they will be delighted if they make it into the last 16.

The United States aren’t really known for their footballing prowess, but their national team has been steadily growing in strength since the 1980s, and they are currently a respectable 14^th in the FIFA world rankings after reaching the final of the 2009 Confederations Cup against Brazil. As such, they will definitely be looking to secure a place in the knockout stages this year, and are likely to put in a strong showing- if Algeria are to make it out of the group, they will need to play with purpose against this team.

And then there is of course England. England are almost certainly the toughest team in this group, with a FIFA ranking of 8^th in the World and a very strong qualifying campaign behind them in which they won nine of their ten games. They do have a reputation for dropping their game against “weaker” opposition, however, and also for making silly mistakes in big games. Algeria will certainly be hoping that the English team lives down to this reputation when they play them on the 18^th!

Algeria itself is currently in a period of almost unprecedented stability in its post-colonial era, and with that has come a lot of growth- including a dramatic increase in literacy rates and quality of education, resulting in an almost 70% literacy rate and a reduction in the number of Algerian citizens living in poverty to an estimated 23 per cent- lower than South Africa’s 50 per cent- in spite of the average GDP per person being only £7,100 (in SA the figure is £10,000).

Algeria has undergone a struggle for independence from the French as well as a series of long civil wars, and is still feeling the after-effects- but it is coming out the other end still fighting, with its education system and job market continually improving. If this continues, then who knows? Perhaps the Algerian team will start to become a force to reckon with in future tournaments!

Nigeria

Nigeria played their first game of this year’s tournament on Saturday afternoon against a well-respected Argentine side. The Nigerian team, known as the Super Eagles, didn’t manage to pull off an upset, but can hold their heads high after a narrow 1-0 defeat as the Argentine side is well recognised as one of the most skilled and dangerous teams in world football.

The other teams in Group B are Greece and South Korea. Greece are the team in form at the moment, with a current FIFA ranking of 13, but suffered a surprise 2-0 loss to South Korea in the opening game, casting doubt on their pre-tournament status as favourites for the second qualifying spot (almost certainly behind Argentina). While their showing in the 2008 European Championship left little to write home about, the 2004 European Champions will still be disappointed if they don’t make it to the last 16.

South Korea, for all that they are relatively unknown as a footballing nation in the West, still field a strong national side. The 2002 World Cup semi-finalists and 2010 runners-up for the East Asian Championship will be looking to build on their recent form and have already given their fanatical support base something to shout about in this tournament with a 2-0 victory over Greece on Saturday. A player to watch out for is Captain and midfielder Park Ji-Sung, who plays for Manchester United and scored their second goal in this year’s tournament.

The Argentine team is widely expected to lead the group, and with one look at their team roster, it’s easy to see why. Their entire team is rife with first- choice players for top-flight European clubs, and not just on the pitch- the Argentine bench is as scary as a lot of first teams here at the tournament!

For all that though, the Argentines have had a bit of a rough patch in qualifying, and footballing icon Diego Maradona’s coaching credentials have yet to come through a major test. They also labour under the pressure of being a favourite to do well in the tournament, and football is a game well-known for unexpected results.

Nigeria aren’t exactly short of the sort of talent needed to take advantage of that either- with players like Everton’s Yakubu Aiyegbeni and Joseph Yobo in the side, they are ranked a respectable 21^st in the World according to FIFA, the third-highest ranking African side after Egypt and Cameroon. They are also the only African side to have made it to the last 16 of a World Cup on more than one occasion, qualifying in two of their three appearances in 1994 and 1998. Their group in 2010, in fact, presents them with some familiar faces- in 1994, they beat out Greece and Bulgaria to qualify second to Argentina! They will certainly be hoping for a repeat performance here, though their ambition will aim to lead them even further.

Nigeria itself has one of the largest economies in Africa, and one of the fastest growing economies in the World. It has a very influential presence in West African politics, all of which means that its relative stability since its return to democracy in 1999 is a good thing not just for Nigerians, but also for all of West Africa. However, the internal and international disputes that surrounded the 2007 elections, and the death of President Yar’Adua earlier this year, have served to indicate how fragile that stability still is- Nigeria has huge potential for growth and is one of the economic powers of the future, but it does labour under some heavy burdens.

While Nigeria’s economy is strong, for example, it is also the eighth most populous nation in the World, and roughly seventy per cent of its hundred and forty nine million citizens live in poverty. Nigeria’s natural resources are rich- it is an oil producer, among other things, and a member of OPEC- but problems with corruption still persist, and with the standard of education being generally poor, few Nigerians have the skills necessary to take advantage of the skilled jobs that foreign investment brings. That is one thing that we at Computers 4 Africa will be hoping to change, with your help, over the next few years.

World cup fever

The World Cup comes to Africa for the first time ever this year, and with no less than six African teams taking part, we at Computers 4 Africa thought it’d be a good idea to have a look at what’s going to be happening in South Africa over the next few weeks, and what it means for Africans to have the tournament hosted on their doorstep.

We will be running a series of stories throughout the next few weeks, examining each of the participating African nations in turn, as well as following their games as the tournament unfolds. We’ll start with the host nation, South Africa, who will be hoping for a win against Mexico when they kick off the tournament on Friday if their hopes of reaching the knockout stage are to be fulfilled. No host nation has ever failed to make it past the first group stage of a World Cup so far, and South Africa is certainly hoping not to break that that record.