African football - Most popular for 2008
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Will the upsets in African football have an influence in the results for this region in this live
online and radio commentary World Cup 2010 qualifier between Belize and Mexico live as the smaller
home team try to create one of the biggest shocks in world football by beating a buoyant Mexican
national team?
Cotonsport Garoua were only founded twenty-two years ago but have come on leaps and bounds in
African football during that short period and go into the final of the 2008 CAF African Champions
League looking to make history by winning their first ever continental trophy. However the task at
hand could hardly be more daunting given their opponents.
Back in January we spent a month covering the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations on WCB. The three things I
took away from this were: 1) African football is on the rise, 2) Manucho is a damn fine footballer,
and 3) There's not nearly enough written about African football. What I mean by 3) is that [...]
African football often gets pushed aside in the international footballing press.
It's either too foreign to most journalists or not interesting enough for their tastes.
That's one reason today's piece about the Al Ahly-Zamalek derby in the Guardian was such a pleasure
to see.
We talked about juju, the art of African witchcraft about a year ago on this blog.
Back then, we stated that
it has long been common for soccer teams to turn to witchcraft, or juju, to gain a
competitive edge. Teams might, for example, summon witch doctors to cast spells on opposing
teams.
The following interview with Nigerian legend and captain of the national team Nwanko Kanu was
conducted by African football magazine New African Soccer and reprinted here with their permission.
The magazine is free to download. Nigeria went into the Beijing Olympics football tournament
confident that they will do well.
Growing up as a football mad teenager, the weekly purchase of Guerin Sportivo was a must. The
Italian magazine was cheap enough and, in any case, I could easily get the money for it off my
parents with the excuse that it was helping me learn Italian.
But what made it such a must read in the eyes of a kid fed up with the banalities that proliferated
what were roughly the English equivalents of Match and Shoot was the serious edge to its writing.
Egyptian giants Al-Ahly became outright the most successful club in African Champions League
history this weekend, drawing 2-2 in Cameroon against runners up Cotonsport Garoua to emerge 4-2
winners on aggregate. After a 2-0 win over the Cameroonians at the Cairo International Stadium two
weeks ago Al-Ahly were overwhelming favourites to win the tie going into the second leg and they
did just
Some news to read as you get arrested for bad dancing: Football relocation horror stories, with
humor (Financial Times) BBC exposes African football conmen. (BBC News) Oguchi Onyewu is now
officially Belgian. And missing. And Michael Bradley is expensive (Americans Abroad) An interview
with the guy who was scored on by Thierry Henry in that Chinatown [.
I'm back from my travels in Spain and happy to see them doing so well in the European Cup.
But what struck me today after almost two weeks away was this interesting article about an
alternative World Cup from today's Guardian.
According to the article, this cup, dubbed the Viva World Cup is 'an inter-national competition
designed for countries that remain unrecognized by FIFA'.
Cause and effect. It's something we learned about as young kids.
Now, we get to see cause and effect in motion in the world of professional football.
The cause: The rise of African football, coupled with the advent and wide use of satellite
teleivion.
The effect?
I know, I know. I promised 31 straight days of posts and what happened?
Anyways, I'm here.
As you know, I also write for New African Soccer magazine.
What is that? According to the site:
New African Soccer Magazine is the only monthly English language magazine and ezine dedicated to
African football.
The remaining twenty teams in contention for a spot at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa learnt
their fate yesterday, as the final group draw was made in Zurich. The teams were seeded based on
their most recent FIFA World rankings and split into five groups of four. Teams will play each
other twice, with group winners advancing to the party in South Africa in two years time.
