I'm watching AFCON highlights (always entertaining) and as usual I'm wondering why African nations don't seem to perform better at the World Cup. I don't think an African nation has made it past the QF and they've only made it that far a couple of times. Why do you think that is?

They clearly have talented players. Most of the players at AFCON usually represent the biggest club teams from the biggest leagues in the sport. A lot of the best players in Europe are African. I've also noticed that other nations successes seem to be tied to them getting more players of African descent to play for their nations. Notably even the USMNT's recent success seems to coincide with (imo) the blackest team they've ever had.

So what's the deal with African nations? Is it just as simple as a lack of resources, training and facilities? What can be done about it?

facilities and coaches to develop players or quality teams. This is why
African players get injured a lot while on national duty, and this is why
teams don’t want their African players playing in the AFCON.

Essien focked up his elite pro career playing for Ghana. Dude was a defensive
mid on the short list of the Ballon Dor almost every year before he got injured.
Every time he went on national duty he got injured.

There was one World Cup, I believe it was 2010/2014, where players of one
of the African nations were going to stop playing because they had yet to receive
their salaries. The players were threatening to forfeit the games.

Seems odd that the only difference between African nations and others is time spent training. Even if they don't get as much time as they need with their national team squad they get plenty of training with their club teams. Like I mentioned, were talking about some of the top clubs in the world. Are you saying they simply don't have the same strength and conditioning, nutrition and staff that other nations have? Hard to believe that they can produce so many world class talents but can't put it together on the national stage. Seems like they should get more wins on sheer talent alone.

A lot of these African nations are ruled by incompetent or nefarious
governments, and the people of those African nations
don’t have the amenities and resources to have fruitful lives. So you
think the teams of those nations are going to be able to compete
against the French and Germans?

England, France, Italy, and Spain have the best soccer leagues in the world.
The leagues in African countries are terribly run and supported. Do you
see the top African players in the world playing in those leagues?

Hell no.

But you see top Spanish players playing in Spain, or top English players
playing in England. Those countries are rich, so their leagues and national
teams are rich in resources and support.

Lack of financial resources, lack of organization, and lack of support are why
those African countries can’t compete at the highest of levels. From the weak
coaches, from the weak trainers, from the weak faculties, there is huge drop off
compared to the European pro clubs that those African players play for.....HUGE.

And it takes way more than talent to win. You should know that. Coaching/Scheme/
and training are the most important factors. Frank Lampard had a Ferrari of a team,
and was trash as hell. Tuchel took over that same team and won the CL in less than
6 months....also see MU. Italy doesn’t have the most talented players in comparison
to Belgium or France, and they dominated the Euro cup....why? Coaching/scheme/
training/ discipline.

African countries lack all that above.

>A lot of these African nations are ruled by incompetent or
>nefarious
>governments, and the people of those African nations
>don’t have the amenities and resources to have fruitful
>lives. So you
>think the teams of those nations are going to be able to
>compete
>against the French and Germans?

if we're talking club teams ... of course not. as far as national teams i feel like it should be a little closer than it is.


>England, France, Italy, and Spain have the best soccer leagues
>in the world.
>The leagues in African countries are terribly run and
>supported. Do you
>see the top African players in the world playing in those
>leagues?
>
>Hell no.
>
>But you see top Spanish players playing in Spain, or top
>English players
>playing in England. Those countries are rich, so their leagues
>and national
>teams are rich in resources and support.
>
>Lack of financial resources, lack of organization, and lack of
>support are why
>those African countries can’t compete at the highest of
>levels. From the weak
>coaches, from the weak trainers, from the weak faculties,
>there is huge drop off
>compared to the European pro clubs that those African players
>play for.....HUGE.
>
>And it takes way more than talent to win. You should know
>that. Coaching/Scheme/
>and training are the most important factors. Frank Lampard had
>a Ferrari of a team,
>and was trash as hell. Tuchel took over that same team and won
>the CL in less than
>6 months....also see MU. Italy doesn’t have the most
>talented players in comparison
>to Belgium or France, and they dominated the Euro cup....why?
> Coaching/scheme/
>training/ discipline.
>
>African countries lack all that above.
>
>

i guess i get what you're saying in general. but like i mentioned in the other reply about Senegal. every player on their squad just about plays in top level leagues and top clubs. they don't have any players playing in Senegalese leagues. seems kinda odd that they get such high level training at their pro clubs and then can't seem to produce when they come together for their national team. even if they don't have the best coaches and facilities, the drop off shouldn't be that bad right?

of course i'm saying this as someone who knows little to nothing about African national teams outside of AFCON highlights and cheering for them at the WC every 4 years. i just find all of this fascinating.

>Seems odd that the only difference between African nations
>and others is time spent training. Even if they don't get as
>much time as they need with their national team squad they get
>plenty of training with their club teams. Like I mentioned,
>were talking about some of the top clubs in the world.

Well, the very best Africans are on the very best clubs, but top to bottom, no. Take last tourney's champ, Algeria. There's Mahrez, but after that it's a few guys who are regulars in Ligue 1, couple of decent guys in Bundesliga, a guy in the Turkish league, some Ligue 1 reserve squad members...or take Egypt. Salah is the best striker in the world right now, but I cannot name a single other Egyptian player off the top of my head.

>Are
>you saying they simply don't have the same strength and
>conditioning, nutrition and staff that other nations have?
>Hard to believe that they can produce so many world class
>talents

That's the thing—it's not that many. For the reasons allstah brought up, really.

most of Egpyt's players play in Egypt outside of Salah and two or three other guys. take Senegal for instance though. just a quick look at their roster shows the got a bunch of players at clubs like Chelsea, Bayern Munich, PSG, AC Milan, Liverpool, etc. all their guys are playing in top level leagues and clubs in Europe. that's a lot of top level talent. most nations outside of Europe would kill to have a roster with that much experience.

>take Senegal for instance though.
>just a quick look at their roster shows the got a bunch of
>players at clubs like Chelsea, Bayern Munich, PSG, AC Milan,
>Liverpool, etc.

Toure, Diallo, and Sarr playing for Milan, PSG, and Bayern is of limited value. Toure has played a total of 441 league minutes, Diallo 768 (Sergio Ramos injury), and Bouna Sarr just 55. Sergino Dest has played almost as much at Barca as all of those players combined. You discount Algeria but Ramy Bensabaini playing 1000 minutes at Borussa Monchengladbach is worth more than Bouna Sarr playing 55 at Bayern Munich.

They can be on the team, but they arent consistently performing at a high level, or even getting run in a lot of cases.

all their guys are playing in top level
>leagues and clubs in Europe. that's a lot of top level
>talent.

its not top level talent. theyre backups to top level talent, plus Mane and Koulibaly, who ARE top level talent.

>most nations outside of Europe would kill to have a
>roster with that much experience.

like who? The US had like 8 guys regularly starting for Champions League participants this year and we aint winning shit lol. Senegal had what...one?

(amo la serie a ma è inferiore all'inghilterra)

...just so we could see how elite he really is week in and week out

but he loves Naples (who doesnt) and doesnt want to leave



>>take Senegal for instance though.
>>just a quick look at their roster shows the got a bunch of
>>players at clubs like Chelsea, Bayern Munich, PSG, AC Milan,
>>Liverpool, etc.
>
>Toure, Diallo, and Sarr playing for Milan, PSG, and Bayern is
>of limited value. Toure has played a total of 441 league
>minutes, Diallo 768 (Sergio Ramos injury), and Bouna Sarr just
>55. Sergino Dest has played almost as much at Barca as all of
>those players combined. You discount Algeria but Ramy
>Bensabaini playing 1000 minutes at Borussa Monchengladbach is
>worth more than Bouna Sarr playing 55 at Bayern Munich.
>
>They can be on the team, but they arent consistently
>performing at a high level, or even getting run in a lot of
>cases.
>
>all their guys are playing in top level
>>leagues and clubs in Europe. that's a lot of top level
>>talent.
>
>its not top level talent. theyre backups to top level talent,
>plus Mane and Koulibaly, who ARE top level talent.
>
>>most nations outside of Europe would kill to have a
>>roster with that much experience.
>
>like who? The US had like 8 guys regularly starting for
>Champions League participants this year and we aint winning
>shit lol. Senegal had what...one?

im actually a lowkey Napoli fan and they kept getting lowball offers

idk if it was bc of Covid that clubs thought Napoli would sell cheap, but Man City ended up signing Ruben Dias from Benfica instead and then he won PL POY lol.

Napoli had a real nice season last year only to choke CL away with a 1-1 draw on the last day to a team that got relegated so we didnt even get to see him play at that level this year.

hes 30 and running out of prime, but i wont be mad if he finishes in Naples

and Don Aurelio was like, if Maguire garbage ass is worth that, then my guy is 200 million lol and that was the end of that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHETTz4_Lqk



>im actually a lowkey Napoli fan and they kept getting lowball
>offers
>
>idk if it was bc of Covid that clubs thought Napoli would sell
>cheap, but Man City ended up signing Ruben Dias from Benfica
>instead and then he won PL POY lol.
>
>Napoli had a real nice season last year only to choke CL away
>with a 1-1 draw on the last day to a team that got relegated
>so we didnt even get to see him play at that level this year.
>
>
>hes 30 and running out of prime, but i wont be mad if he
>finishes in Naples

"he has a clause, $150M" with that shit eating grin lmao

due to corruption in the football federation.

you're not wrong that African teams are at a disadvantage, but let's not just speak of African deficiencies, but also how European teams also have some of those deficiencies and also how they've built up unfair advantages (Buck's link is a good example).
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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

in to teach and coach players, and they don’t always have the best
interest of the players in mind. Most are simply there for monetary gains, and
and don’t really care about the performances or advancement of the team,
and they definitely don’t care about the culture or spirit of the country.

Germany has a German coach. England has an English coach. Most European countries don’t bring in non-indigenous coaches to coach their national teams,
so there are no language barriers, or cultural indifferences, and it generates an immense amount of national spirit.


In order for a nation to be successful they need a rich football culture from top to
bottom: the talent, the academies, the facilities, the coaches, the trainers, the organizations, and most importantly the leadership. African countries simply don’t
have those properties.

I don’t even bother watching that bullcrap.

i know nothing of the inner workings of soccer in Africa obviously so this is enlightening.

If you want, you can get into the issue of agents scooping up African children and bringing them to Europe with promises of stardom, usually for a substantial fee. That works out for the real prospects, and there are honest, ethical agents who do this, but it can also be a scam.

https://www.reuters.com/article/africa-soccer-trafficking/chasing-dreams-young-african-footballers-duped-dumped-by-traffickers-idINL8N13R3V920151207

(I think it's too insular to say it's about african national set up deficiencies and rather worthwhile to point at what built in advantages there are for European teams to dominate):

1. Some of the best African talent gets poached by colonial powers (thanks colonialism!). Ansu Fati is going to play for Spain, for example. Ez Abde too. Part of that is rules around needing euro passports to play in euro leagues and then european national teams will pay more out to a player for playing/winning than african teams do.

2. Euro academies. Part of why Brazil is still able to compete, aside from pure size of population and love of the game, is its one of the few countries that hosts its own world class pro academies outside of Europe. Some of the best African academies are extensions of Euro clubs (eto'o's work, for example, is a feeder into Spanish league play for their best players).

3. Not knowing each others' play style. Combining players from multiple leagues with multiple playing styles for a national team is a disadvantage compared to having a few core teams that have your national team backbone (Bayern; real and barca for the two best national examples of that). For example, Luis Enrique yesterday got to watch practically an entire national team 11 if he wanted yesterday in el clasico, minus one or two defenders.


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you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

for example many of the players on Algeria, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon etc were born and bred in France and chose, for various reasons, to play for their parents' country. These decisions are based on a multitude of factors, from the ones you pointed out, to emotional/family ones, or also simply because a player might not be able to get picked for his country of birth's national squad. I feel like it's taking away the player's agency than to say they are getting poached, as if they have no say in the matter. I'd love to have Mahrez on the French squad for example, but he wanted to play for Algeria so that's that, and good for him

but it's like 80% toward European, 20% toward Africa.

European poaching has a bunch of material advantages that make it an uneven playing field for players deciding where to play.

Take Abde for an example. He *might* make the spanish team in the future (honestly, I'd bet against him getting double digit caps for Spain, I'd love to be wrong), he was definitely going to make the Moroccan team and likely would have played. But with european leagues playing during AFCON (but not during Euros), barcelona wanted him to stay. And could also marshal arguments about exposure, profit, etc. It wasn't just a decision about which team he wants to play for and/or where he had a chance of playing--there were definitely forces pushing him toward spain.

Same thing happened to Munir until FIFA changed the rules (twice!) in part because Spain cheaply played him once or twice and then benched him when he was 20 and he was never going to play again for Spain's national team. Now he's a regular squad player for Morocco.

-----------
you think we playing chess, but i'm playing mad-making. Basaglia

corruption at every level
poor development structure
poor and/or misplaced funding
human trafficking

highkey if CONMEBOL/South America continues down the path theyre on they are looking to fall back closer to Africa/North America than competing w/ Europe. Even Argentina and Brazil have major issues in their operation & nations in general.

learned something new this year. not saying i know everything about the continent but i never thought i'd be learning about nation i'd never heard of before from a soccer tournament.

https://sports.yahoo.com/crush-of-fans-at-african-cup-of-nations-soccer-game-leaves-6-dead-at-least-40-injured-235947682.html

Bruh. What the fuck kinda bullshit is that? 80 fucking percent?! Not 25, not 50, but 80?! smmfh.

and that is how all the other non Cameroon games have been.

They gave away too many tickets for that home game.

This is a LOCAL rivalry and Cape Verde has been surprising and Senegal has been underwhelming so far, so it should make for a barnburner.

the opener
https://mixture.gg/v/61f0483608a4c

Hakimi's banger
https://mixture.gg/v/61f05d49a4c81