Sporting Thoughts
Cameroon won their second African Nations Cup in a row on Sunday, but the result of the final, a 0-0 draw, was indicative of the poor standard of play throughout the tournament.
Pelé predicted that an African team would win the World Cup before 2010, but judging by these performances they don't stand a chance. The tournament started abysmally with just five goals scored in the first ten matches. This would have put most people off staying up to watch the BBC's excellent coverage, but for those who saw it through, the action got more compelling as the tournament heated up.
Although the quality of football stayed very poor, the title remained very open as no team really managed to dominate the games.
Cameroon are the best African team by some distance; they've won this tournament twice in a row and also won the last Olympic tournament, but even they played poorly. Only Patrick Mboma really stood out and even he didn't look anywhere near good enough to play for any of Europe's top teams.
The most intriguing story to come out of the African Nations Cup is the decline of Nigeria from the dominant team on the continent to the personification of the problems with African football. All the old clichés about African teams seem to ring true with Nigeria; tactically they're shocking, they have no composure on the ball, every player - especially the defenders - wants too long on the ball and their finishing is abysmal.
All this from the team that did the most to raise the profile of African football throughout the 1990s. It was the Dutchman Clemens Westerhof who took charge of the Super Eagles in 1989, who gave the first indication that the African teams could realise their potential, but the rocks around which the Nigerian successes of the last decade have been built are starting to fade away. Sunday Oliseh, Finidi George, Taribo West, Jay-Jay Okocha and Victor Ikpeba are all treading the slippery slope towards retirement.
The younger players are all showing enough promise to take over where these great names in African football have left off, but they all lack the experience and consistency to put Nigeria back into the upper echelon of footballing nations. The good news for England is that Nigeria are as bad now as they have been at any stage in the last ten years - now is the best time to have drawn them in an otherwise unfortunate World Cup group.
With their older players on the verge of retirement, their coach on the verge of unemployment and their keeper playing amateur football in Nigeria the prospects look very bad indeed for the "Super Eagles".
On the showing of the past three weeks, Nigeria should pose no problems to England in June. Now we only have to worry about favourites Argentina.
14th Feb 2002