Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
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Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Nov. 28, 2022
By Sean Jacobs
Something exciting is happening in the World Cup: The five teams representing Africa in the tournament have African coaches.
This may not sound exceptional. Gregg Berhalter, who coaches the United States team, is a New Jersey native; Hansi Flick, who manages the German squad, hails from Heidelberg. But typically, African national teams have relied on European coaches — mostly unknown in their home countries, effectively mercenaries bouncing around the world — when big tournaments come around. If an African country hired an African coach, he would be summarily fired right before a big tournament, even if he took the team through the qualifiers.
Not this year.
Of the five African coaches, four made their careers in top-tier European football: Aliou Cissé was born in Senegal and Rigobert Song in Cameroon. But both made their careers in the English Premier League. Cissé immigrated to France when he was young. Song made his debut for the Cameroonian national team in the 1998 World Cup, but joined a French team shortly afterward before going on to England. Walid Regragui was born outside Paris, and played for a string of French teams before starting a coaching career in Morocco. Otto Addo, who is coaching the Ghanaian team, was born and grew up in Hamburg and played in the German Bundesliga. Only Jalel Kadri is a product of his home country’s leagues, having played and coached in Tunisia.
African football is discovering the power of the diaspora. Of course there’s a long history of the Black diaspora playing a part in events on the continent: Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian independence leader, incorporated pan-Africanist thought by way of America and Britain into his program when he took power in 1957. Since the era of democratization in the early 1990s, some African countries and their leaders — in Senegal and Ghana, for example — have been more open to the political and economic power and expertise of the diaspora beyond mere remittances.
That seems to have accelerated in the new century. And we are increasingly watching this kind of solidarity on the football field.
Take Cissé, the coach for Senegal. He has been at his coaching job the longest and is probably the most interesting of the lot. He was appointed in 2015 and coached Senegal in the 2018 World Cup, in which the team performed admirably well and was eliminated only on a bizarre technicality. Under him, Senegal won the 2022 African Cup of Nations.
But it’s not just his winning record that keeps Cissé in a job. Another reason for his longevity is that he understands the pressures of his players. He was captain of the last great Senegal team, the 2002 squad. That team shocked everyone at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan by beating the defending champion, France, in the opening match and making it as far as the quarterfinals.
Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
The prominence of coaches like Cissé comes as African countries’ relationship with their diasporas is changing. There are now millions of African immigrants and their descendants in Europe. From Algerians who moved to France in the 1960s to near-daily arrivals of irregular African migrants in Italy today, Europe has been becoming Blacker for decades.
Even as these groups are integrated — and shape popular culture, politics, the economy and, of course, sports — many still maintain some allegiance to their ancestral homes and go back to visit regularly, send remittances and follow Moroccan or Cameroonian news as closely as they would in Marrakesh or Yaoundé. (Social media cements this relationship even further.)
But there is another important change underway, reflective of the rising power and relevance of Africa to Europe. African players are increasingly on the center stage of world football. Though African players have a long history in Europe, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they began to star in the top leagues there.
At first, they were signed for their “speed” and “natural strength.” But coaches like José Mourinho and Roberto Mancini also appreciated their skill, leadership and smarts. Players like Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, John Obi-Mikel, Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré became global stars by the first decade of the 21st century. Sadio Mané of Senegal was a key part of Liverpool F.C.’s attack for years (and the team struggled after his departure for Bayern Munich). His national teammate, the defender Kalidou Koulibaly, captained Napoli before he moved to Chelsea.
Today, a majority of Africans — like most football fans across the world — follow the top European leagues. Football in this way cultivates a sort of pan-African identity, even if it is only for 90 minutes at a time. And there is a kind of continental solidarity that emerges for many African fans during the World Cup. If your home country’s team has made it, you first support it; when it gets eliminated, you support whichever African country is doing well. As the novelist Chimamanda Adichie put it during the 2010 World Cup, your “nationalism expands its boundaries as your country loses.”
I feel old writing this, but I have to admit that when I was a kid in South Africa, the first team I supported in the World Cup was Brazil. Partly, that’s because the first tournament I cared about was in 1982, and one of Brazil’s stars was Sócrates, a proudly political, anti-dictatorship midfielder who became my idol.
But there was another reason the squad appealed to me and my friends back then: Brazil was a largely Black team that played among the football giants. African teams, meanwhile, usually showed poor form and were quickly eliminated. In the years that followed, as African teams began to have more success, drawing on their diasporas in Europe, many of us began to cheer for teams from the continent instead.
The results after a week of matches have been mixed. Morocco and Senegal, after stumbling in their opening matches, have bounced back with convincing victories. Cameroon, Ghana and Tunisia have been less convincing. But as Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia or Germany’s to Japan remind us, the World Cup can be full of surprises.
No team from Africa has yet made it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup. But I and the millions watching across the continent this year are cheering on these new head coaches, and hoping for the impossible.
Sean Jacobs (@_seanjacobs) is a professor of international relations at the New School, the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country and the author of a newsletter about soccer.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opin ... d=tw-share
Nov. 28, 2022
By Sean Jacobs
Something exciting is happening in the World Cup: The five teams representing Africa in the tournament have African coaches.
This may not sound exceptional. Gregg Berhalter, who coaches the United States team, is a New Jersey native; Hansi Flick, who manages the German squad, hails from Heidelberg. But typically, African national teams have relied on European coaches — mostly unknown in their home countries, effectively mercenaries bouncing around the world — when big tournaments come around. If an African country hired an African coach, he would be summarily fired right before a big tournament, even if he took the team through the qualifiers.
Not this year.
Of the five African coaches, four made their careers in top-tier European football: Aliou Cissé was born in Senegal and Rigobert Song in Cameroon. But both made their careers in the English Premier League. Cissé immigrated to France when he was young. Song made his debut for the Cameroonian national team in the 1998 World Cup, but joined a French team shortly afterward before going on to England. Walid Regragui was born outside Paris, and played for a string of French teams before starting a coaching career in Morocco. Otto Addo, who is coaching the Ghanaian team, was born and grew up in Hamburg and played in the German Bundesliga. Only Jalel Kadri is a product of his home country’s leagues, having played and coached in Tunisia.
African football is discovering the power of the diaspora. Of course there’s a long history of the Black diaspora playing a part in events on the continent: Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian independence leader, incorporated pan-Africanist thought by way of America and Britain into his program when he took power in 1957. Since the era of democratization in the early 1990s, some African countries and their leaders — in Senegal and Ghana, for example — have been more open to the political and economic power and expertise of the diaspora beyond mere remittances.
That seems to have accelerated in the new century. And we are increasingly watching this kind of solidarity on the football field.
Take Cissé, the coach for Senegal. He has been at his coaching job the longest and is probably the most interesting of the lot. He was appointed in 2015 and coached Senegal in the 2018 World Cup, in which the team performed admirably well and was eliminated only on a bizarre technicality. Under him, Senegal won the 2022 African Cup of Nations.
But it’s not just his winning record that keeps Cissé in a job. Another reason for his longevity is that he understands the pressures of his players. He was captain of the last great Senegal team, the 2002 squad. That team shocked everyone at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan by beating the defending champion, France, in the opening match and making it as far as the quarterfinals.
Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
The prominence of coaches like Cissé comes as African countries’ relationship with their diasporas is changing. There are now millions of African immigrants and their descendants in Europe. From Algerians who moved to France in the 1960s to near-daily arrivals of irregular African migrants in Italy today, Europe has been becoming Blacker for decades.
Even as these groups are integrated — and shape popular culture, politics, the economy and, of course, sports — many still maintain some allegiance to their ancestral homes and go back to visit regularly, send remittances and follow Moroccan or Cameroonian news as closely as they would in Marrakesh or Yaoundé. (Social media cements this relationship even further.)
But there is another important change underway, reflective of the rising power and relevance of Africa to Europe. African players are increasingly on the center stage of world football. Though African players have a long history in Europe, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they began to star in the top leagues there.
At first, they were signed for their “speed” and “natural strength.” But coaches like José Mourinho and Roberto Mancini also appreciated their skill, leadership and smarts. Players like Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, John Obi-Mikel, Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré became global stars by the first decade of the 21st century. Sadio Mané of Senegal was a key part of Liverpool F.C.’s attack for years (and the team struggled after his departure for Bayern Munich). His national teammate, the defender Kalidou Koulibaly, captained Napoli before he moved to Chelsea.
Today, a majority of Africans — like most football fans across the world — follow the top European leagues. Football in this way cultivates a sort of pan-African identity, even if it is only for 90 minutes at a time. And there is a kind of continental solidarity that emerges for many African fans during the World Cup. If your home country’s team has made it, you first support it; when it gets eliminated, you support whichever African country is doing well. As the novelist Chimamanda Adichie put it during the 2010 World Cup, your “nationalism expands its boundaries as your country loses.”
I feel old writing this, but I have to admit that when I was a kid in South Africa, the first team I supported in the World Cup was Brazil. Partly, that’s because the first tournament I cared about was in 1982, and one of Brazil’s stars was Sócrates, a proudly political, anti-dictatorship midfielder who became my idol.
But there was another reason the squad appealed to me and my friends back then: Brazil was a largely Black team that played among the football giants. African teams, meanwhile, usually showed poor form and were quickly eliminated. In the years that followed, as African teams began to have more success, drawing on their diasporas in Europe, many of us began to cheer for teams from the continent instead.
The results after a week of matches have been mixed. Morocco and Senegal, after stumbling in their opening matches, have bounced back with convincing victories. Cameroon, Ghana and Tunisia have been less convincing. But as Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia or Germany’s to Japan remind us, the World Cup can be full of surprises.
No team from Africa has yet made it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup. But I and the millions watching across the continent this year are cheering on these new head coaches, and hoping for the impossible.
Sean Jacobs (@_seanjacobs) is a professor of international relations at the New School, the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country and the author of a newsletter about soccer.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opin ... d=tw-share
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Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Writing about exodus of African players to Europe without mentioning Keshi (RIP)?
Guess he is South African.
Just last week we were told of the DEATH of African football. This week the story has changed.
Guess he is South African.
Just last week we were told of the DEATH of African football. This week the story has changed.
“We do not have natural disasters in Nigeria, the only disaster we have is human beings,”
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Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
i'd say two days ago.
Saints baby we did it
“I am in my technical zone and I can’t hear the boos,” Domenech said.
“I am in my technical zone and I can’t hear the boos,” Domenech said.
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Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
If our football handlers are smart, they will focus on getting our coaches up to speed.. we do not need FCs to win golden bronze, get knocked out of the group stages etc.. Let us fail with our own. Cisse has been coach of Senegal since 2015. He is only 46 years old, improving , learning etc . but no Nigeria will go for 60 years old journey men who cannot communicate properly to coach our SE...We have no swagger in our play and we most def do not look like a Nigerian team playing out there . We have players who are scared to hold the ball..if you doubt me go watch the SE vs England in 2002 etc compared to what we call football since **** took over.
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My post are with no warranties and confers zero rights. Get out your feelings
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All rights aren't reserved
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
What is "African?" Are Otto Addo and Kalidou Koulibaly "African" if they were born in and grew up abroad?
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Toxicarrow wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:47 am Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Nov. 28, 2022
By Sean Jacobs
Something exciting is happening in the World Cup: The five teams representing Africa in the tournament have African coaches.
This may not sound exceptional. Gregg Berhalter, who coaches the United States team, is a New Jersey native; Hansi Flick, who manages the German squad, hails from Heidelberg. But typically, African national teams have relied on European coaches — mostly unknown in their home countries, effectively mercenaries bouncing around the world — when big tournaments come around. If an African country hired an African coach, he would be summarily fired right before a big tournament, even if he took the team through the qualifiers.
Not this year.
Of the five African coaches, four made their careers in top-tier European football: Aliou Cissé was born in Senegal and Rigobert Song in Cameroon. But both made their careers in the English Premier League. Cissé immigrated to France when he was young. Song made his debut for the Cameroonian national team in the 1998 World Cup, but joined a French team shortly afterward before going on to England. Walid Regragui was born outside Paris, and played for a string of French teams before starting a coaching career in Morocco. Otto Addo, who is coaching the Ghanaian team, was born and grew up in Hamburg and played in the German Bundesliga. Only Jalel Kadri is a product of his home country’s leagues, having played and coached in Tunisia.
African football is discovering the power of the diaspora. Of course there’s a long history of the Black diaspora playing a part in events on the continent: Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian independence leader, incorporated pan-Africanist thought by way of America and Britain into his program when he took power in 1957. Since the era of democratization in the early 1990s, some African countries and their leaders — in Senegal and Ghana, for example — have been more open to the political and economic power and expertise of the diaspora beyond mere remittances.
That seems to have accelerated in the new century. And we are increasingly watching this kind of solidarity on the football field.
Take Cissé, the coach for Senegal. He has been at his coaching job the longest and is probably the most interesting of the lot. He was appointed in 2015 and coached Senegal in the 2018 World Cup, in which the team performed admirably well and was eliminated only on a bizarre technicality. Under him, Senegal won the 2022 African Cup of Nations.
But it’s not just his winning record that keeps Cissé in a job. Another reason for his longevity is that he understands the pressures of his players. He was captain of the last great Senegal team, the 2002 squad. That team shocked everyone at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan by beating the defending champion, France, in the opening match and making it as far as the quarterfinals.
Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
The prominence of coaches like Cissé comes as African countries’ relationship with their diasporas is changing. There are now millions of African immigrants and their descendants in Europe. From Algerians who moved to France in the 1960s to near-daily arrivals of irregular African migrants in Italy today, Europe has been becoming Blacker for decades.
Even as these groups are integrated — and shape popular culture, politics, the economy and, of course, sports — many still maintain some allegiance to their ancestral homes and go back to visit regularly, send remittances and follow Moroccan or Cameroonian news as closely as they would in Marrakesh or Yaoundé. (Social media cements this relationship even further.)
But there is another important change underway, reflective of the rising power and relevance of Africa to Europe. African players are increasingly on the center stage of world football. Though African players have a long history in Europe, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they began to star in the top leagues there.
At first, they were signed for their “speed” and “natural strength.” But coaches like José Mourinho and Roberto Mancini also appreciated their skill, leadership and smarts. Players like Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, John Obi-Mikel, Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré became global stars by the first decade of the 21st century. Sadio Mané of Senegal was a key part of Liverpool F.C.’s attack for years (and the team struggled after his departure for Bayern Munich). His national teammate, the defender Kalidou Koulibaly, captained Napoli before he moved to Chelsea.
Today, a majority of Africans — like most football fans across the world — follow the top European leagues. Football in this way cultivates a sort of pan-African identity, even if it is only for 90 minutes at a time. And there is a kind of continental solidarity that emerges for many African fans during the World Cup. If your home country’s team has made it, you first support it; when it gets eliminated, you support whichever African country is doing well. As the novelist Chimamanda Adichie put it during the 2010 World Cup, your “nationalism expands its boundaries as your country loses.”
I feel old writing this, but I have to admit that when I was a kid in South Africa, the first team I supported in the World Cup was Brazil. Partly, that’s because the first tournament I cared about was in 1982, and one of Brazil’s stars was Sócrates, a proudly political, anti-dictatorship midfielder who became my idol.
But there was another reason the squad appealed to me and my friends back then: Brazil was a largely Black team that played among the football giants. African teams, meanwhile, usually showed poor form and were quickly eliminated. In the years that followed, as African teams began to have more success, drawing on their diasporas in Europe, many of us began to cheer for teams from the continent instead.
The results after a week of matches have been mixed. Morocco and Senegal, after stumbling in their opening matches, have bounced back with convincing victories. Cameroon, Ghana and Tunisia have been less convincing. But as Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia or Germany’s to Japan remind us, the World Cup can be full of surprises.
No team from Africa has yet made it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup. But I and the millions watching across the continent this year are cheering on these new head coaches, and hoping for the impossible.
Sean Jacobs (@_seanjacobs) is a professor of international relations at the New School, the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country and the author of a newsletter about soccer.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opin ... d=tw-share
The highlighted section is factually wrong. The enhanced influence of African players began in the 1980s.
That's when the likes of Thomas Nkono, Antoine Bell (Cameroon), Basile Boli (CIV) and Keshi (NGR), made major breakthroughs in Europe...
On the 'connection to Senegal', that has more to do with individual personality/character, although it is easy to understand why an indigene would have a greater chance of achieving this. Westerhof and Claude Leroy achieved this. Oliseh never did...
At Liverpool Klopp did, despite being German and Souness never did, despite being British...
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.
We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.
We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Are they things that are factually Right? Always looking to disagree. Africans shatxj wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:00 pmToxicarrow wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:47 am Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Nov. 28, 2022
By Sean Jacobs
Something exciting is happening in the World Cup: The five teams representing Africa in the tournament have African coaches.
This may not sound exceptional. Gregg Berhalter, who coaches the United States team, is a New Jersey native; Hansi Flick, who manages the German squad, hails from Heidelberg. But typically, African national teams have relied on European coaches — mostly unknown in their home countries, effectively mercenaries bouncing around the world — when big tournaments come around. If an African country hired an African coach, he would be summarily fired right before a big tournament, even if he took the team through the qualifiers.
Not this year.
Of the five African coaches, four made their careers in top-tier European football: Aliou Cissé was born in Senegal and Rigobert Song in Cameroon. But both made their careers in the English Premier League. Cissé immigrated to France when he was young. Song made his debut for the Cameroonian national team in the 1998 World Cup, but joined a French team shortly afterward before going on to England. Walid Regragui was born outside Paris, and played for a string of French teams before starting a coaching career in Morocco. Otto Addo, who is coaching the Ghanaian team, was born and grew up in Hamburg and played in the German Bundesliga. Only Jalel Kadri is a product of his home country’s leagues, having played and coached in Tunisia.
African football is discovering the power of the diaspora. Of course there’s a long history of the Black diaspora playing a part in events on the continent: Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian independence leader, incorporated pan-Africanist thought by way of America and Britain into his program when he took power in 1957. Since the era of democratization in the early 1990s, some African countries and their leaders — in Senegal and Ghana, for example — have been more open to the political and economic power and expertise of the diaspora beyond mere remittances.
That seems to have accelerated in the new century. And we are increasingly watching this kind of solidarity on the football field.
Take Cissé, the coach for Senegal. He has been at his coaching job the longest and is probably the most interesting of the lot. He was appointed in 2015 and coached Senegal in the 2018 World Cup, in which the team performed admirably well and was eliminated only on a bizarre technicality. Under him, Senegal won the 2022 African Cup of Nations.
But it’s not just his winning record that keeps Cissé in a job. Another reason for his longevity is that he understands the pressures of his players. He was captain of the last great Senegal team, the 2002 squad. That team shocked everyone at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan by beating the defending champion, France, in the opening match and making it as far as the quarterfinals.
Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
The prominence of coaches like Cissé comes as African countries’ relationship with their diasporas is changing. There are now millions of African immigrants and their descendants in Europe. From Algerians who moved to France in the 1960s to near-daily arrivals of irregular African migrants in Italy today, Europe has been becoming Blacker for decades.
Even as these groups are integrated — and shape popular culture, politics, the economy and, of course, sports — many still maintain some allegiance to their ancestral homes and go back to visit regularly, send remittances and follow Moroccan or Cameroonian news as closely as they would in Marrakesh or Yaoundé. (Social media cements this relationship even further.)
But there is another important change underway, reflective of the rising power and relevance of Africa to Europe. African players are increasingly on the center stage of world football. Though African players have a long history in Europe, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they began to star in the top leagues there.
At first, they were signed for their “speed” and “natural strength.” But coaches like José Mourinho and Roberto Mancini also appreciated their skill, leadership and smarts. Players like Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, John Obi-Mikel, Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré became global stars by the first decade of the 21st century. Sadio Mané of Senegal was a key part of Liverpool F.C.’s attack for years (and the team struggled after his departure for Bayern Munich). His national teammate, the defender Kalidou Koulibaly, captained Napoli before he moved to Chelsea.
Today, a majority of Africans — like most football fans across the world — follow the top European leagues. Football in this way cultivates a sort of pan-African identity, even if it is only for 90 minutes at a time. And there is a kind of continental solidarity that emerges for many African fans during the World Cup. If your home country’s team has made it, you first support it; when it gets eliminated, you support whichever African country is doing well. As the novelist Chimamanda Adichie put it during the 2010 World Cup, your “nationalism expands its boundaries as your country loses.”
I feel old writing this, but I have to admit that when I was a kid in South Africa, the first team I supported in the World Cup was Brazil. Partly, that’s because the first tournament I cared about was in 1982, and one of Brazil’s stars was Sócrates, a proudly political, anti-dictatorship midfielder who became my idol.
But there was another reason the squad appealed to me and my friends back then: Brazil was a largely Black team that played among the football giants. African teams, meanwhile, usually showed poor form and were quickly eliminated. In the years that followed, as African teams began to have more success, drawing on their diasporas in Europe, many of us began to cheer for teams from the continent instead.
The results after a week of matches have been mixed. Morocco and Senegal, after stumbling in their opening matches, have bounced back with convincing victories. Cameroon, Ghana and Tunisia have been less convincing. But as Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia or Germany’s to Japan remind us, the World Cup can be full of surprises.
No team from Africa has yet made it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup. But I and the millions watching across the continent this year are cheering on these new head coaches, and hoping for the impossible.
Sean Jacobs (@_seanjacobs) is a professor of international relations at the New School, the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country and the author of a newsletter about soccer.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opin ... d=tw-share
The highlighted section is factually wrong. The enhanced influence of African players began in the 1980s.
That's when the likes of Thomas Nkono, Antoine Bell (Cameroon), Basile Boli (CIV) and Keshi (NGR), made major breakthroughs in Europe...
On the 'connection to Senegal', that has more to do with individual personality/character, although it is easy to understand why an indigene would have a greater chance of achieving this. Westerhof and Claude Leroy achieved this. Oliseh never did...
At Liverpool Klopp did, despite being German and Souness never did, despite being British...
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Football foolosopher, how can you point out factual inaccuracies while being factually inaccurate yourself? Evidence of your typically sloppy thinking... Basile Boli is only an "African player" if "African" is purely a matter of race and ethnicity. He was born in Ivory Coast, but immigrated to France early, and is a product of French football culture and programs (signed by Auxerre at age 15). He was a French international, has only played European football and has never played for an African team. Pay attention to detail because I will be watching you for your usual sloppiness.txj wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:00 pmToxicarrow wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:47 am Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Nov. 28, 2022
By Sean Jacobs
Something exciting is happening in the World Cup: The five teams representing Africa in the tournament have African coaches.
This may not sound exceptional. Gregg Berhalter, who coaches the United States team, is a New Jersey native; Hansi Flick, who manages the German squad, hails from Heidelberg. But typically, African national teams have relied on European coaches — mostly unknown in their home countries, effectively mercenaries bouncing around the world — when big tournaments come around. If an African country hired an African coach, he would be summarily fired right before a big tournament, even if he took the team through the qualifiers.
Not this year.
Of the five African coaches, four made their careers in top-tier European football: Aliou Cissé was born in Senegal and Rigobert Song in Cameroon. But both made their careers in the English Premier League. Cissé immigrated to France when he was young. Song made his debut for the Cameroonian national team in the 1998 World Cup, but joined a French team shortly afterward before going on to England. Walid Regragui was born outside Paris, and played for a string of French teams before starting a coaching career in Morocco. Otto Addo, who is coaching the Ghanaian team, was born and grew up in Hamburg and played in the German Bundesliga. Only Jalel Kadri is a product of his home country’s leagues, having played and coached in Tunisia.
African football is discovering the power of the diaspora. Of course there’s a long history of the Black diaspora playing a part in events on the continent: Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian independence leader, incorporated pan-Africanist thought by way of America and Britain into his program when he took power in 1957. Since the era of democratization in the early 1990s, some African countries and their leaders — in Senegal and Ghana, for example — have been more open to the political and economic power and expertise of the diaspora beyond mere remittances.
That seems to have accelerated in the new century. And we are increasingly watching this kind of solidarity on the football field.
Take Cissé, the coach for Senegal. He has been at his coaching job the longest and is probably the most interesting of the lot. He was appointed in 2015 and coached Senegal in the 2018 World Cup, in which the team performed admirably well and was eliminated only on a bizarre technicality. Under him, Senegal won the 2022 African Cup of Nations.
But it’s not just his winning record that keeps Cissé in a job. Another reason for his longevity is that he understands the pressures of his players. He was captain of the last great Senegal team, the 2002 squad. That team shocked everyone at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan by beating the defending champion, France, in the opening match and making it as far as the quarterfinals.
Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
The prominence of coaches like Cissé comes as African countries’ relationship with their diasporas is changing. There are now millions of African immigrants and their descendants in Europe. From Algerians who moved to France in the 1960s to near-daily arrivals of irregular African migrants in Italy today, Europe has been becoming Blacker for decades.
Even as these groups are integrated — and shape popular culture, politics, the economy and, of course, sports — many still maintain some allegiance to their ancestral homes and go back to visit regularly, send remittances and follow Moroccan or Cameroonian news as closely as they would in Marrakesh or Yaoundé. (Social media cements this relationship even further.)
But there is another important change underway, reflective of the rising power and relevance of Africa to Europe. African players are increasingly on the center stage of world football. Though African players have a long history in Europe, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they began to star in the top leagues there.
At first, they were signed for their “speed” and “natural strength.” But coaches like José Mourinho and Roberto Mancini also appreciated their skill, leadership and smarts. Players like Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, John Obi-Mikel, Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré became global stars by the first decade of the 21st century. Sadio Mané of Senegal was a key part of Liverpool F.C.’s attack for years (and the team struggled after his departure for Bayern Munich). His national teammate, the defender Kalidou Koulibaly, captained Napoli before he moved to Chelsea.
Today, a majority of Africans — like most football fans across the world — follow the top European leagues. Football in this way cultivates a sort of pan-African identity, even if it is only for 90 minutes at a time. And there is a kind of continental solidarity that emerges for many African fans during the World Cup. If your home country’s team has made it, you first support it; when it gets eliminated, you support whichever African country is doing well. As the novelist Chimamanda Adichie put it during the 2010 World Cup, your “nationalism expands its boundaries as your country loses.”
I feel old writing this, but I have to admit that when I was a kid in South Africa, the first team I supported in the World Cup was Brazil. Partly, that’s because the first tournament I cared about was in 1982, and one of Brazil’s stars was Sócrates, a proudly political, anti-dictatorship midfielder who became my idol.
But there was another reason the squad appealed to me and my friends back then: Brazil was a largely Black team that played among the football giants. African teams, meanwhile, usually showed poor form and were quickly eliminated. In the years that followed, as African teams began to have more success, drawing on their diasporas in Europe, many of us began to cheer for teams from the continent instead.
The results after a week of matches have been mixed. Morocco and Senegal, after stumbling in their opening matches, have bounced back with convincing victories. Cameroon, Ghana and Tunisia have been less convincing. But as Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia or Germany’s to Japan remind us, the World Cup can be full of surprises.
No team from Africa has yet made it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup. But I and the millions watching across the continent this year are cheering on these new head coaches, and hoping for the impossible.
Sean Jacobs (@_seanjacobs) is a professor of international relations at the New School, the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country and the author of a newsletter about soccer.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opin ... d=tw-share
The highlighted section is factually wrong. The enhanced influence of African players began in the 1980s.
That's when the likes of Thomas Nkono, Antoine Bell (Cameroon), Basile Boli (CIV) and Keshi (NGR), made major breakthroughs in Europe...
On the 'connection to Senegal', that has more to do with individual personality/character, although it is easy to understand why an indigene would have a greater chance of achieving this. Westerhof and Claude Leroy achieved this. Oliseh never did...
At Liverpool Klopp did, despite being German and Souness never did, despite being British...
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Toxicarrow wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:47 am Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Nov. 28, 2022
By Sean Jacobs
Something exciting is happening in the World Cup: The five teams representing Africa in the tournament have African coaches.
This may not sound exceptional. Gregg Berhalter, who coaches the United States team, is a New Jersey native; Hansi Flick, who manages the German squad, hails from Heidelberg. But typically, African national teams have relied on European coaches — mostly unknown in their home countries, effectively mercenaries bouncing around the world — when big tournaments come around. If an African country hired an African coach, he would be summarily fired right before a big tournament, even if he took the team through the qualifiers.
Not this year.
Of the five African coaches, four made their careers in top-tier European football: Aliou Cissé was born in Senegal and Rigobert Song in Cameroon. But both made their careers in the English Premier League. Cissé immigrated to France when he was young. Song made his debut for the Cameroonian national team in the 1998 World Cup, but joined a French team shortly afterward before going on to England. Walid Regragui was born outside Paris, and played for a string of French teams before starting a coaching career in Morocco. Otto Addo, who is coaching the Ghanaian team, was born and grew up in Hamburg and played in the German Bundesliga. Only Jalel Kadri is a product of his home country’s leagues, having played and coached in Tunisia.
African football is discovering the power of the diaspora. Of course there’s a long history of the Black diaspora playing a part in events on the continent: Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian independence leader, incorporated pan-Africanist thought by way of America and Britain into his program when he took power in 1957. Since the era of democratization in the early 1990s, some African countries and their leaders — in Senegal and Ghana, for example — have been more open to the political and economic power and expertise of the diaspora beyond mere remittances.
That seems to have accelerated in the new century. And we are increasingly watching this kind of solidarity on the football field.
Take Cissé, the coach for Senegal. He has been at his coaching job the longest and is probably the most interesting of the lot. He was appointed in 2015 and coached Senegal in the 2018 World Cup, in which the team performed admirably well and was eliminated only on a bizarre technicality. Under him, Senegal won the 2022 African Cup of Nations.
But it’s not just his winning record that keeps Cissé in a job. Another reason for his longevity is that he understands the pressures of his players. He was captain of the last great Senegal team, the 2002 squad. That team shocked everyone at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan by beating the defending champion, France, in the opening match and making it as far as the quarterfinals.
Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
The prominence of coaches like Cissé comes as African countries’ relationship with their diasporas is changing. There are now millions of African immigrants and their descendants in Europe. From Algerians who moved to France in the 1960s to near-daily arrivals of irregular African migrants in Italy today, Europe has been becoming Blacker for decades.
Even as these groups are integrated — and shape popular culture, politics, the economy and, of course, sports — many still maintain some allegiance to their ancestral homes and go back to visit regularly, send remittances and follow Moroccan or Cameroonian news as closely as they would in Marrakesh or Yaoundé. (Social media cements this relationship even further.)
But there is another important change underway, reflective of the rising power and relevance of Africa to Europe. African players are increasingly on the center stage of world football. Though African players have a long history in Europe, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they began to star in the top leagues there.
At first, they were signed for their “speed” and “natural strength.” But coaches like José Mourinho and Roberto Mancini also appreciated their skill, leadership and smarts. Players like Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, John Obi-Mikel, Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré became global stars by the first decade of the 21st century. Sadio Mané of Senegal was a key part of Liverpool F.C.’s attack for years (and the team struggled after his departure for Bayern Munich). His national teammate, the defender Kalidou Koulibaly, captained Napoli before he moved to Chelsea.
Today, a majority of Africans — like most football fans across the world — follow the top European leagues. Football in this way cultivates a sort of pan-African identity, even if it is only for 90 minutes at a time. And there is a kind of continental solidarity that emerges for many African fans during the World Cup. If your home country’s team has made it, you first support it; when it gets eliminated, you support whichever African country is doing well. As the novelist Chimamanda Adichie put it during the 2010 World Cup, your “nationalism expands its boundaries as your country loses.”
I feel old writing this, but I have to admit that when I was a kid in South Africa, the first team I supported in the World Cup was Brazil. Partly, that’s because the first tournament I cared about was in 1982, and one of Brazil’s stars was Sócrates, a proudly political, anti-dictatorship midfielder who became my idol.
But there was another reason the squad appealed to me and my friends back then: Brazil was a largely Black team that played among the football giants. African teams, meanwhile, usually showed poor form and were quickly eliminated. In the years that followed, as African teams began to have more success, drawing on their diasporas in Europe, many of us began to cheer for teams from the continent instead.
The results after a week of matches have been mixed. Morocco and Senegal, after stumbling in their opening matches, have bounced back with convincing victories. Cameroon, Ghana and Tunisia have been less convincing. But as Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia or Germany’s to Japan remind us, the World Cup can be full of surprises.
No team from Africa has yet made it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup. But I and the millions watching across the continent this year are cheering on these new head coaches, and hoping for the impossible.
Sean Jacobs (@_seanjacobs) is a professor of international relations at the New School, the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country and the author of a newsletter about soccer.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opin ... d=tw-share
WHAT'S NEW HERE?
Some of us have brought this matter of reliance on FC's literally for decades only to be vilified by that section of the country that lacks confidence in their ability or is unwilling to do the dirty hard work that progress requires. Their stated attitude is that national football is too important to be trusted to an indigene. They prefer the false certainty of a tested white man. The rest of the world noticed but were too politically-correct to say it.
When I heard that ALL the African countries took indigenes to Qatar I was gratified and it made me rejoice that Nigeria did not qualify: it would have been the shameful exception.
We know what the NFA did on multiple occasions to the late Amodu and the late Keshi. In the case of Amodu and SA 2010, the clueless folks in the NFA failed to recognize the symbolic importance of sending an African coach (the one who actually qualified the team) there and hired a European. No need to restate the results of that debacle here.
Bell
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
I'M HAPPY THAT...Bigpokey24 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 2:28 pm If our football handlers are smart, they will focus on getting our coaches up to speed.. we do not need FCs to win golden bronze, get knocked out of the group stages etc.. Let us fail with our own. Cisse has been coach of Senegal since 2015. He is only 46 years old, improving , learning etc . but no Nigeria will go for 60 years old journey men who cannot communicate properly to coach our SE...We have no swagger in our play and we most def do not look like a Nigerian team playing out there . We have players who are scared to hold the ball..if you doubt me go watch the SE vs England in 2002 etc compared to what we call football since **** took over.
...more and more people are now buying into things some of us have been preaching for years.
Bell
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Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Who is this Basil Boli. Never heard of him and I been watching football religiously since 1986 world cup as a primary school kid
Ratlala :thumbs: :D
https://youtu.be/8CZLsYase0Q
https://youtu.be/8CZLsYase0Q
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Apples and oranges.
This article is highlighting the fact that Africans are coaching African teams. That is more progress, but what some of us were speaking to is fundamental errors our players are still making at this level of football.
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
You obviously haven't been watching as much.Comrade Machel wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 5:28 pm
Who is this Basil Boli. Never heard of him and I been watching football religiously since 1986 world cup as a primary school kid
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Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Otto Addo is as African as Michael Jordan
Wha choo looking at?!
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Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
AndroMeda wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 5:44 pmYou obviously haven't been watching as much.Comrade Machel wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 5:28 pm
Who is this Basil Boli. Never heard of him and I been watching football religiously since 1986 world cup as a primary school kid
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Look up the only Champions League a French team has won, and who scored the only goal.Comrade Machel wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 5:28 pm
Who is this Basil Boli. Never heard of him and I been watching football religiously since 1986 world cup as a primary school kid
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Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
A lot more things are wrong in the article. E.g, Rigobert Song didn't make his debut in 1998. It was actually in 1994.txj wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:00 pmToxicarrow wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:47 am Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Nov. 28, 2022
By Sean Jacobs
Something exciting is happening in the World Cup: The five teams representing Africa in the tournament have African coaches.
This may not sound exceptional. Gregg Berhalter, who coaches the United States team, is a New Jersey native; Hansi Flick, who manages the German squad, hails from Heidelberg. But typically, African national teams have relied on European coaches — mostly unknown in their home countries, effectively mercenaries bouncing around the world — when big tournaments come around. If an African country hired an African coach, he would be summarily fired right before a big tournament, even if he took the team through the qualifiers.
Not this year.
Of the five African coaches, four made their careers in top-tier European football: Aliou Cissé was born in Senegal and Rigobert Song in Cameroon. But both made their careers in the English Premier League. Cissé immigrated to France when he was young. Song made his debut for the Cameroonian national team in the 1998 World Cup, but joined a French team shortly afterward before going on to England. Walid Regragui was born outside Paris, and played for a string of French teams before starting a coaching career in Morocco. Otto Addo, who is coaching the Ghanaian team, was born and grew up in Hamburg and played in the German Bundesliga. Only Jalel Kadri is a product of his home country’s leagues, having played and coached in Tunisia.
African football is discovering the power of the diaspora. Of course there’s a long history of the Black diaspora playing a part in events on the continent: Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian independence leader, incorporated pan-Africanist thought by way of America and Britain into his program when he took power in 1957. Since the era of democratization in the early 1990s, some African countries and their leaders — in Senegal and Ghana, for example — have been more open to the political and economic power and expertise of the diaspora beyond mere remittances.
That seems to have accelerated in the new century. And we are increasingly watching this kind of solidarity on the football field.
Take Cissé, the coach for Senegal. He has been at his coaching job the longest and is probably the most interesting of the lot. He was appointed in 2015 and coached Senegal in the 2018 World Cup, in which the team performed admirably well and was eliminated only on a bizarre technicality. Under him, Senegal won the 2022 African Cup of Nations.
But it’s not just his winning record that keeps Cissé in a job. Another reason for his longevity is that he understands the pressures of his players. He was captain of the last great Senegal team, the 2002 squad. That team shocked everyone at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan by beating the defending champion, France, in the opening match and making it as far as the quarterfinals.
Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
The prominence of coaches like Cissé comes as African countries’ relationship with their diasporas is changing. There are now millions of African immigrants and their descendants in Europe. From Algerians who moved to France in the 1960s to near-daily arrivals of irregular African migrants in Italy today, Europe has been becoming Blacker for decades.
Even as these groups are integrated — and shape popular culture, politics, the economy and, of course, sports — many still maintain some allegiance to their ancestral homes and go back to visit regularly, send remittances and follow Moroccan or Cameroonian news as closely as they would in Marrakesh or Yaoundé. (Social media cements this relationship even further.)
But there is another important change underway, reflective of the rising power and relevance of Africa to Europe. African players are increasingly on the center stage of world football. Though African players have a long history in Europe, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they began to star in the top leagues there.
At first, they were signed for their “speed” and “natural strength.” But coaches like José Mourinho and Roberto Mancini also appreciated their skill, leadership and smarts. Players like Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, John Obi-Mikel, Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré became global stars by the first decade of the 21st century. Sadio Mané of Senegal was a key part of Liverpool F.C.’s attack for years (and the team struggled after his departure for Bayern Munich). His national teammate, the defender Kalidou Koulibaly, captained Napoli before he moved to Chelsea.
Today, a majority of Africans — like most football fans across the world — follow the top European leagues. Football in this way cultivates a sort of pan-African identity, even if it is only for 90 minutes at a time. And there is a kind of continental solidarity that emerges for many African fans during the World Cup. If your home country’s team has made it, you first support it; when it gets eliminated, you support whichever African country is doing well. As the novelist Chimamanda Adichie put it during the 2010 World Cup, your “nationalism expands its boundaries as your country loses.”
I feel old writing this, but I have to admit that when I was a kid in South Africa, the first team I supported in the World Cup was Brazil. Partly, that’s because the first tournament I cared about was in 1982, and one of Brazil’s stars was Sócrates, a proudly political, anti-dictatorship midfielder who became my idol.
But there was another reason the squad appealed to me and my friends back then: Brazil was a largely Black team that played among the football giants. African teams, meanwhile, usually showed poor form and were quickly eliminated. In the years that followed, as African teams began to have more success, drawing on their diasporas in Europe, many of us began to cheer for teams from the continent instead.
The results after a week of matches have been mixed. Morocco and Senegal, after stumbling in their opening matches, have bounced back with convincing victories. Cameroon, Ghana and Tunisia have been less convincing. But as Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia or Germany’s to Japan remind us, the World Cup can be full of surprises.
No team from Africa has yet made it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup. But I and the millions watching across the continent this year are cheering on these new head coaches, and hoping for the impossible.
Sean Jacobs (@_seanjacobs) is a professor of international relations at the New School, the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country and the author of a newsletter about soccer.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opin ... d=tw-share
The highlighted section is factually wrong. The enhanced influence of African players began in the 1980s.
That's when the likes of Thomas Nkono, Antoine Bell (Cameroon), Basile Boli (CIV) and Keshi (NGR), made major breakthroughs in Europe...
On the 'connection to Senegal', that has more to do with individual personality/character, although it is easy to understand why an indigene would have a greater chance of achieving this. Westerhof and Claude Leroy achieved this. Oliseh never did...
At Liverpool Klopp did, despite being German and Souness never did, despite being British...
Only two things in life are certain - death and taxes. But there is one other unpleasant certainty: criticism. No one escapes it entirely and often our careers, our emotional stability, even our happiness depends on how we react to it."By Benjamin Franklin"
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
ohsee wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:49 pmFootball foolosopher, how can you point out factual inaccuracies while being factually inaccurate yourself? Evidence of your typically sloppy thinking... Basile Boli is only an "African player" if "African" is purely a matter of race and ethnicity. He was born in Ivory Coast, but immigrated to France early, and is a product of French football culture and programs (signed by Auxerre at age 15). He was a French international, has only played European football and has never played for an African team. Pay attention to detail because I will be watching you for your usual sloppiness.txj wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:00 pmToxicarrow wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:47 am Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Nov. 28, 2022
By Sean Jacobs
Something exciting is happening in the World Cup: The five teams representing Africa in the tournament have African coaches.
This may not sound exceptional. Gregg Berhalter, who coaches the United States team, is a New Jersey native; Hansi Flick, who manages the German squad, hails from Heidelberg. But typically, African national teams have relied on European coaches — mostly unknown in their home countries, effectively mercenaries bouncing around the world — when big tournaments come around. If an African country hired an African coach, he would be summarily fired right before a big tournament, even if he took the team through the qualifiers.
Not this year.
Of the five African coaches, four made their careers in top-tier European football: Aliou Cissé was born in Senegal and Rigobert Song in Cameroon. But both made their careers in the English Premier League. Cissé immigrated to France when he was young. Song made his debut for the Cameroonian national team in the 1998 World Cup, but joined a French team shortly afterward before going on to England. Walid Regragui was born outside Paris, and played for a string of French teams before starting a coaching career in Morocco. Otto Addo, who is coaching the Ghanaian team, was born and grew up in Hamburg and played in the German Bundesliga. Only Jalel Kadri is a product of his home country’s leagues, having played and coached in Tunisia.
African football is discovering the power of the diaspora. Of course there’s a long history of the Black diaspora playing a part in events on the continent: Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian independence leader, incorporated pan-Africanist thought by way of America and Britain into his program when he took power in 1957. Since the era of democratization in the early 1990s, some African countries and their leaders — in Senegal and Ghana, for example — have been more open to the political and economic power and expertise of the diaspora beyond mere remittances.
That seems to have accelerated in the new century. And we are increasingly watching this kind of solidarity on the football field.
Take Cissé, the coach for Senegal. He has been at his coaching job the longest and is probably the most interesting of the lot. He was appointed in 2015 and coached Senegal in the 2018 World Cup, in which the team performed admirably well and was eliminated only on a bizarre technicality. Under him, Senegal won the 2022 African Cup of Nations.
But it’s not just his winning record that keeps Cissé in a job. Another reason for his longevity is that he understands the pressures of his players. He was captain of the last great Senegal team, the 2002 squad. That team shocked everyone at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan by beating the defending champion, France, in the opening match and making it as far as the quarterfinals.
Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
The prominence of coaches like Cissé comes as African countries’ relationship with their diasporas is changing. There are now millions of African immigrants and their descendants in Europe. From Algerians who moved to France in the 1960s to near-daily arrivals of irregular African migrants in Italy today, Europe has been becoming Blacker for decades.
Even as these groups are integrated — and shape popular culture, politics, the economy and, of course, sports — many still maintain some allegiance to their ancestral homes and go back to visit regularly, send remittances and follow Moroccan or Cameroonian news as closely as they would in Marrakesh or Yaoundé. (Social media cements this relationship even further.)
But there is another important change underway, reflective of the rising power and relevance of Africa to Europe. African players are increasingly on the center stage of world football. Though African players have a long history in Europe, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they began to star in the top leagues there.
At first, they were signed for their “speed” and “natural strength.” But coaches like José Mourinho and Roberto Mancini also appreciated their skill, leadership and smarts. Players like Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, John Obi-Mikel, Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré became global stars by the first decade of the 21st century. Sadio Mané of Senegal was a key part of Liverpool F.C.’s attack for years (and the team struggled after his departure for Bayern Munich). His national teammate, the defender Kalidou Koulibaly, captained Napoli before he moved to Chelsea.
Today, a majority of Africans — like most football fans across the world — follow the top European leagues. Football in this way cultivates a sort of pan-African identity, even if it is only for 90 minutes at a time. And there is a kind of continental solidarity that emerges for many African fans during the World Cup. If your home country’s team has made it, you first support it; when it gets eliminated, you support whichever African country is doing well. As the novelist Chimamanda Adichie put it during the 2010 World Cup, your “nationalism expands its boundaries as your country loses.”
I feel old writing this, but I have to admit that when I was a kid in South Africa, the first team I supported in the World Cup was Brazil. Partly, that’s because the first tournament I cared about was in 1982, and one of Brazil’s stars was Sócrates, a proudly political, anti-dictatorship midfielder who became my idol.
But there was another reason the squad appealed to me and my friends back then: Brazil was a largely Black team that played among the football giants. African teams, meanwhile, usually showed poor form and were quickly eliminated. In the years that followed, as African teams began to have more success, drawing on their diasporas in Europe, many of us began to cheer for teams from the continent instead.
The results after a week of matches have been mixed. Morocco and Senegal, after stumbling in their opening matches, have bounced back with convincing victories. Cameroon, Ghana and Tunisia have been less convincing. But as Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia or Germany’s to Japan remind us, the World Cup can be full of surprises.
No team from Africa has yet made it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup. But I and the millions watching across the continent this year are cheering on these new head coaches, and hoping for the impossible.
Sean Jacobs (@_seanjacobs) is a professor of international relations at the New School, the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country and the author of a newsletter about soccer.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opin ... d=tw-share
The highlighted section is factually wrong. The enhanced influence of African players began in the 1980s.
That's when the likes of Thomas Nkono, Antoine Bell (Cameroon), Basile Boli (CIV) and Keshi (NGR), made major breakthroughs in Europe...
On the 'connection to Senegal', that has more to do with individual personality/character, although it is easy to understand why an indigene would have a greater chance of achieving this. Westerhof and Claude Leroy achieved this. Oliseh never did...
At Liverpool Klopp did, despite being German and Souness never did, despite being British...
Doesn't change any of the substantive point really. But if it makes you feel good, then rock on...
Form is temporary; Class is Permanent!
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.
We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
Liverpool, European Champions 2005.
We watched this very boring video, 500 times, of Sacchi doing defensive drills, using sticks and without the ball, with Maldini, Baresi and Albertini. We used to think before then that if the other players are better, you have to lose. After that we learned anything is possible – you can beat better teams by using tactics." Jurgen Klopp
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
This pathetic fallacy that a coach cannot perform his duties because he doesn't speak the language of his players is very outdated. Go and ask professional soccer players, because it's what they are used to in their clubs. Below is a good example here. At least our (SE) coach can still communicate in passable English.Bigpokey24 wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 2:28 pm If our football handlers are smart, they will focus on getting our coaches up to speed.. we do not need FCs to win golden bronze, get knocked out of the group stages etc.. Let us fail with our own. Cisse has been coach of Senegal since 2015. He is only 46 years old, improving , learning etc . but no Nigeria will go for 60 years old journey men who cannot communicate properly to coach our SE...We have no swagger in our play and we most def do not look like a Nigerian team playing out there . We have players who are scared to hold the ball..if you doubt me go watch the SE vs England in 2002 etc compared to what we call football since **** took over.
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Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
I never LOSE, I either WIN or LEARN. – Nelson Mandela
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
txj wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 6:57 pmohsee wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:49 pmFootball foolosopher, how can you point out factual inaccuracies while being factually inaccurate yourself? Evidence of your typically sloppy thinking... Basile Boli is only an "African player" if "African" is purely a matter of race and ethnicity. He was born in Ivory Coast, but immigrated to France early, and is a product of French football culture and programs (signed by Auxerre at age 15). He was a French international, has only played European football and has never played for an African team. Pay attention to detail because I will be watching you for your usual sloppiness.txj wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 3:00 pmToxicarrow wrote: ↑Wed Nov 30, 2022 4:47 am Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
Nov. 28, 2022
By Sean Jacobs
Something exciting is happening in the World Cup: The five teams representing Africa in the tournament have African coaches.
This may not sound exceptional. Gregg Berhalter, who coaches the United States team, is a New Jersey native; Hansi Flick, who manages the German squad, hails from Heidelberg. But typically, African national teams have relied on European coaches — mostly unknown in their home countries, effectively mercenaries bouncing around the world — when big tournaments come around. If an African country hired an African coach, he would be summarily fired right before a big tournament, even if he took the team through the qualifiers.
Not this year.
Of the five African coaches, four made their careers in top-tier European football: Aliou Cissé was born in Senegal and Rigobert Song in Cameroon. But both made their careers in the English Premier League. Cissé immigrated to France when he was young. Song made his debut for the Cameroonian national team in the 1998 World Cup, but joined a French team shortly afterward before going on to England. Walid Regragui was born outside Paris, and played for a string of French teams before starting a coaching career in Morocco. Otto Addo, who is coaching the Ghanaian team, was born and grew up in Hamburg and played in the German Bundesliga. Only Jalel Kadri is a product of his home country’s leagues, having played and coached in Tunisia.
African football is discovering the power of the diaspora. Of course there’s a long history of the Black diaspora playing a part in events on the continent: Kwame Nkrumah, the Ghanaian independence leader, incorporated pan-Africanist thought by way of America and Britain into his program when he took power in 1957. Since the era of democratization in the early 1990s, some African countries and their leaders — in Senegal and Ghana, for example — have been more open to the political and economic power and expertise of the diaspora beyond mere remittances.
That seems to have accelerated in the new century. And we are increasingly watching this kind of solidarity on the football field.
Take Cissé, the coach for Senegal. He has been at his coaching job the longest and is probably the most interesting of the lot. He was appointed in 2015 and coached Senegal in the 2018 World Cup, in which the team performed admirably well and was eliminated only on a bizarre technicality. Under him, Senegal won the 2022 African Cup of Nations.
But it’s not just his winning record that keeps Cissé in a job. Another reason for his longevity is that he understands the pressures of his players. He was captain of the last great Senegal team, the 2002 squad. That team shocked everyone at the World Cup in South Korea and Japan by beating the defending champion, France, in the opening match and making it as far as the quarterfinals.
Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
The prominence of coaches like Cissé comes as African countries’ relationship with their diasporas is changing. There are now millions of African immigrants and their descendants in Europe. From Algerians who moved to France in the 1960s to near-daily arrivals of irregular African migrants in Italy today, Europe has been becoming Blacker for decades.
Even as these groups are integrated — and shape popular culture, politics, the economy and, of course, sports — many still maintain some allegiance to their ancestral homes and go back to visit regularly, send remittances and follow Moroccan or Cameroonian news as closely as they would in Marrakesh or Yaoundé. (Social media cements this relationship even further.)
But there is another important change underway, reflective of the rising power and relevance of Africa to Europe. African players are increasingly on the center stage of world football. Though African players have a long history in Europe, it wasn’t until the mid-1990s that they began to star in the top leagues there.
At first, they were signed for their “speed” and “natural strength.” But coaches like José Mourinho and Roberto Mancini also appreciated their skill, leadership and smarts. Players like Michael Essien, Didier Drogba, John Obi-Mikel, Samuel Eto’o and Yaya Touré became global stars by the first decade of the 21st century. Sadio Mané of Senegal was a key part of Liverpool F.C.’s attack for years (and the team struggled after his departure for Bayern Munich). His national teammate, the defender Kalidou Koulibaly, captained Napoli before he moved to Chelsea.
Today, a majority of Africans — like most football fans across the world — follow the top European leagues. Football in this way cultivates a sort of pan-African identity, even if it is only for 90 minutes at a time. And there is a kind of continental solidarity that emerges for many African fans during the World Cup. If your home country’s team has made it, you first support it; when it gets eliminated, you support whichever African country is doing well. As the novelist Chimamanda Adichie put it during the 2010 World Cup, your “nationalism expands its boundaries as your country loses.”
I feel old writing this, but I have to admit that when I was a kid in South Africa, the first team I supported in the World Cup was Brazil. Partly, that’s because the first tournament I cared about was in 1982, and one of Brazil’s stars was Sócrates, a proudly political, anti-dictatorship midfielder who became my idol.
But there was another reason the squad appealed to me and my friends back then: Brazil was a largely Black team that played among the football giants. African teams, meanwhile, usually showed poor form and were quickly eliminated. In the years that followed, as African teams began to have more success, drawing on their diasporas in Europe, many of us began to cheer for teams from the continent instead.
The results after a week of matches have been mixed. Morocco and Senegal, after stumbling in their opening matches, have bounced back with convincing victories. Cameroon, Ghana and Tunisia have been less convincing. But as Argentina’s loss to Saudi Arabia or Germany’s to Japan remind us, the World Cup can be full of surprises.
No team from Africa has yet made it beyond the quarterfinals of the World Cup. But I and the millions watching across the continent this year are cheering on these new head coaches, and hoping for the impossible.
Sean Jacobs (@_seanjacobs) is a professor of international relations at the New School, the founder and editor of the website Africa Is a Country and the author of a newsletter about soccer.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/28/opin ... d=tw-share
The highlighted section is factually wrong. The enhanced influence of African players began in the 1980s.
That's when the likes of Thomas Nkono, Antoine Bell (Cameroon), Basile Boli (CIV) and Keshi (NGR), made major breakthroughs in Europe...
On the 'connection to Senegal', that has more to do with individual personality/character, although it is easy to understand why an indigene would have a greater chance of achieving this. Westerhof and Claude Leroy achieved this. Oliseh never did...
At Liverpool Klopp did, despite being German and Souness never did, despite being British...
Doesn't change any of the substantive point really. But if it makes you feel good, then rock on...
Yes, it does not change the substantive point that you are a Sloppy Joe, who never gets his facts right. Of course I will rock on and continue to expose you for the fraud you are.
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
This is the gist. Everything else is noise.Cissé understands that he derives his strength as a coach from his deep connection to Senegal. In an interview this year, he said, essentially, that people from the diaspora understand their home countries in a way that outsiders cannot. He cited technical and tactical expertise as crucial to successful coaching, but added: “It’s also important to know about the country’s past. For me, if you don’t know about the past, it’s difficult to talk about the future.”
“If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.”- Sun Tzu
Re: Something Remarkable Is Happening in African Football
For the first time in the history of the continent, we will have 4 teams getting out of the group stages
Nwabali -- Aina, Bassey, TroostEkong, Sanusi --- Chukwueze, Aribo, Ndidi, Iwobi --- Osimhem, Sadiq Umar