Author Theodore
PL MONTHLY ROUNDUP: Liverpool top the standings, De Bruyne returns in style, and more.
2023 AFCON ROUNDUP: Top ranked African teams put to the sword before the Quarters, South African makes history, and many more.
AFCON EXPOSED: The underwhelming tournament that is the pride and joy of African football
As Africa’s top football spectacle has begun, international attention has turned to Ivory Coast for the Africa Cup of Nations, also known as the AFCON, but mostly to ridicule the tournament.
What used to be an exciting tournament which was a source of patriotic joy for most African nations and a tool for unity for previously segregated nations like South Africa, is now an underwhelming tournament that is riddled by refereeing mistakes, horror performances from some of the biggest African stars, and basically just a waste of time.
In their first games, footballing giants like Nigeria, Cameroon, Algeria, and Egypt played for a draw while Ghana and Tunisia lost their opening games to Cape Verde and Namibia respectively. To put this into context, Namibia had never won an AFCON finals match up until that 1-0 humbling of Tunisia. Egypt almost gave Mozambique their first win ever too, had it not been for Mo Salah’s penalty to even things out.
All these were shocking results for African football fans considering that the above-mentioned are some of the biggest and most successful African nations Football-wise.
Nonetheless, undeniable facts suggests that these are also the African nations with many professional players signed to big European clubs. Their poor performances and the reluctancy of players to join their national teams mid-january could be tied to the fact that these nations have players who don’t want to risk it all for their countries due to the fear of losing their place in their clubs should they get injured.
These European-based players prioritise club-football over the AFCON because the timing of the AFCON just isn’t the best.
Take Umar Sadiq of Nigeria for example. On Friday, Umar Sadiq was ruled out of AFCON2023 due to a knee problem, as per the NFF announcement. The following Monday he was training alone with Spanish club Real Socieadad supposedly because they have the better facilities to treat his injury, then suddenly on Tuesday he was miraculously healed and named in Real Sociedad’s squad to face Osasuna in a Wednesday night Copa del Rey clash. Sadiq came on in the second half and balled out for Real Sociedad. This right here goes to show the unseriousness surrounding the AFCON.
The only people giving it their all on the pitch are the yet-to-be discovered players from smaller and lower-ranked nations because they only have the AFCON to showcase their talent to the world.
Cote D’Ivoire, the host nation, have just finished third in their group and are in contention of going out. The only way they could go through is if they qualify as the third best. Those are some pretty low standards for a team that not only has the homeground advantage, but also has a mixture of megastars and youngsters with high ceilings like Fofana, Franck Kessie, Nicolas Pepe, and Ibrahima Sangare all in their squad.
2019 AFCON champions Algeria are also out following a repetition of underwhelming performances under manager Djamel Belmadi. Algeria finished last with 2 points in a group that consisted of Mauritania, Burkina Faso, and Angola.
Egypt on the other hand, whom are the most successful African nation, qualified second for the knockout stages without a win from three games. Three 2-2 draws against Mozambique, Ghana, and Cape Verde meant that their three points would be more than enough to finish ahead of Mozambique and the lacklustre yet star-studded Ghana side, with Cape Verde finishing first on 7 points.
The timing of the AFCON and the conservative attitude of African stars towards the tournament is depriving us of much expected entertainment and levels of performance.
Hopefully we’ll see a change in the next tournament with regards to the whole planning and perhaps the rescheduling of when AFCON could be held.
A knockout stage without the biggest names in Africa will prove to be catastrophic in my opinion. I mean, who will want to watch the AFCON (except for the fans of countries through to the next round) considering the fact that most viewers in and outside of Africa will want to see most of the biggest African superstars battling it out for the biggest footballing title in all of Africa.
History For SA!
In the early hours of the 21st of January 2024, most South Africans woke up to find that Pretoria-born Dricus Du Plessis won the first ever UFC gold by a South African when he defeated the then-undisputed UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland.
The bout went all the way and had to go to the judges scorecards as neither one of the two men was willing to throw in the towel. The judges scored the fight (47-48 48-47 48-47), in favour of your new undisputed champion Dricus ‘Stillknocks’ Du Plessis.
With his resilience and offensive variety, Stillknocks did just enough to unseat the champion, who put up a superb boxing display with his own variation of the Philly Shell which is commonly used by the undefeated Boxing legend Floyd Mayweather. Sean’s counterpunches were not enough to prevent the challenger from relentlessly pressing forward though.
This fight was monumental for both fighters as this was Sean’s first title defence after winning the belt from Israel Adesanya, whom was first supposed to defend his title against Dricus in an all-African fight to determine the “real African fighter” but Dricus pulled out due to an injury.
Dricus on the other hand had the entirety of Southern Africa on his shoulders, as there has never been a champion in the UFC from that side of the world. Luckily, the man fighting out of Team CIT didn’t succumb to the pressure as he sticked to his game plan and got the win.
MY PL TEAM OF THE SEASON (THUS FAR)
PL MONTHLY ROUNDUP: So I wasn’t entirely wrong about Spurs possibly flopping?
Tottenham Hotspurs has surprisingly been on hot form this season with the appointment of Australian manager Ange Postecoglou mostly to applaud.
Despite losing English marksman Harry Kane before the start of the season, Postecoglou has been able to transform the Spurs team with players like Hueng-Min Son, Yves Bissouma, and Cristian Romero seeing a resurgence of form having endured a frustrating 2022-23 season on the domestic front.
Continue reading “PL MONTHLY ROUNDUP: So I wasn’t entirely wrong about Spurs possibly flopping?”PL MONTHLY ROUNDUP: Rodri-less Manchester City Equals to Spineless Manchester City
Gameweeek 7 was a matchweek to forget for most punters as some of the league’s biggest teams suffered horror defeats against opponents you would usually consider to be subpar.
Continue reading “PL MONTHLY ROUNDUP: Rodri-less Manchester City Equals to Spineless Manchester City”PL MONTHLY ROUNDUP: Worrisome Chelsea & Man United leave fans unimpressed
Chelsea and Manchester United head into the first international break of the season having both tasted defeat twice in as many as four games, with the results after the international break not any better either.
Continue reading “PL MONTHLY ROUNDUP: Worrisome Chelsea & Man United leave fans unimpressed”
PL MONTHLY ROUNDUP: Debutants hit the ground running as the 23/24 season starts
The 2023/24 English Premier League season is well underway and while some debutants hit the ground running for their new clubs, some had first appearances to forget donning the colors of their new football teams. In this blog article, we will be looking at how some teams have faired thus far with only a month back of playing club football.
Continue reading “PL MONTHLY ROUNDUP: Debutants hit the ground running as the 23/24 season starts”
Sports Roundup With Theodore 