Ebola football panic

I have returned to dear Liberia after two months where I had to leave because of the panic that has hit everywhere. This has also touched football, showing that irrational and idiotic fear based on prejudice and ignorance are as much a part of football as in the rest of society.
The first example that has really baffled me is Morocco's refusal to host the African Cup of Nations in January, amid fears of the spread of the virus. Of the three countries with the contagion, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, only Guinea has a chance, albeit very small, of qualifying. But as with Europe and US, the fear of Ebola seems to be rooted in a general fear of Sub-Saharan Africa, not to say racism, as described in a recent article I read. Despite WHO saying that they saw little risk (notwithstanding that the three countries will not qualify, I do not think Ebola patients were considering traveling to watch football), Morocco went ahead to cancel it. Fortunately, CAF has reacted by throwing them out, as the tournament has been moved to Equatorial Guinea.
I hope Morocco faces a long suspension.
Another example is Borussia Dortmund not letting their Gabonese player, Pierre-Emerick Aubemeyang, not play for his national team in today's Africa Cup of Nations qualifier in Angola, which ended 0-0, and keeps Gabon with good chances of qualifying for Equatorial Guinea.
Now, Gabon has not Ebola, and does not border any of the affected countries. Angola has not cases and does not border any of the affected countries. Even in the unlikely case that someone had Ebola, would they be playing football...?
Borussia Dortmund may be ignorant. However, I think that Ebola is just major clubs latest excuse for not releasing their African players. Expect more of the same.
This is beyond football. It is ignorance. It is racism by other means, and if football is going to fight racism, it should also attack decisions based on ignorance.

Ghana and Algeria in the semifinal!

There were two major surprises in the African Cup quarterfinals today.
In the first one, the home side of Angola were surprisingly eliminated by Ghana, who without their star Michael Essien managed a somewhat fortunate and hard-fought 1-0 victory on a goal by Stade Rennais' Asamoah Gyan. Ghana is set to play the winner of Zambia-Nigeria, and a match against their West African rivals Nigeria would surely be a drama!
Go Ghana!

The other quarterfinal saw an even greater surprise as Ivory Coast was eliminated by the interesting Algerians in a dramatic match: in the last minute of the match Ivory Coast went ahead 2-1 on a truly spectacular goal by Galatasaray's Kader Keita. But in the dying seconds of the match Algeria threw everything forward, and managed to equalize by the big Glasgow Rangers defender Madjid Bougherra. The match went into extra time, and Hamer Bouazza from Blackpool scored the winner for the Algerians.
Algeria are surprise qualifers for the World Cup in South Africa, and are not considered to have a chance against England, the USA and Slovenia. But surely these teams should be watching the Algerians!
Algeria will surely have a difficult semifinal as they will face the winner of Egypt-Cameroon. The Egyptians will surely want to show that they are the better team after Algeria elminiated them from the World Cup, prompting a diplomatic crisis between the two countries. However, with today's result Algeria have proven that they are indeed a match for any team! Look out for Algeria!

African Cup of Nations Tragedy

I have been in Angola and I found it a wonderful country with wonderful people. Still, it has a sad history, poverty and violence, and although the country was awarded to host the 2010 African Cup of Nations the violence have alreayd overshadowed the entire tournament.
Upon passing the border from the DR Congo to the Angolan enclave of Cabinda, the bus carrying Togo's national side was attacked by gunmen of the separatist group FLEC. Three members of Togo's entourage have been confirmed killed, and Togo has understandably decided to withdraw from the tournament, where they otherwise faced some interesting matches against Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Burkina Faso.
There is nothing that can be said about the human tragedy here, but in footballing terms the real tragedy is for African football. At a time when Africa is set to host its first world cup, and when the world is finally looking to the African Cup of Nations as a tournament where serious World Cup contenders are participating (I am in Venezuela, where they for the first time are going to show live matches from the tournament), this can only put things in the wrong light, and take attention away from the high quality football we can expect.
That said, it means nothing for South Africa 2010: a different country and a different place, and indeed, Cabinda is a place that has been in conflict for decades - in this sense it more seemed like a miscalculation from Angolan authorities to have set matches there, as well as not have provided the proper protection for the Togolese team.

And in other news...

While the European Championship in Austria/Switzerland is currently taking much of the news here in Europe, there are still things happening in the rest of the football crazed world, not least of all, qualifiers for the coming world cup 2010 in South Africa.

In the South American qualifying group Paraguay has gone ahead of everyone else on top, after defeating the mighty Brazilians by 2-0, on goals by Roque Santa Cruz and Salvador Cabanas. At the same time, Argentina managed an uneasy 1-1 at home against Ecuador, to remain second in the qualifiers, and Colombia is third, after a tie with Peru.
With Brazil fourth, the match Argentina and Brazil next thursday will be another clash of giants between the two top ranked teams on FIFA's World Ranking.

In the African qualifying zone there were some very surprising results showing that some of the more "traditional" big teams will have difficulty qualifying. In group 5, World Cup 2006 surprises of Ghana lost to Gabon; they are still top of the group, but with Libya and Gabon tracing them in what could become very close indeed.
In group 8 Rwanda defeated Morocco, and is now topping their group, while Cameroun's stars only managed a 0-0 in Tanzania, but is still poised to win their group 1.
Another giant, Angola, lost 3-1 to Uganda in group 3 in a group where three teams (Angola, Uganda and Benin) are tied with 6 points at the top.

Finally, in the Asian qualifiers' group 2 Japan won 3-0 against Thailand, and is now poised for a clash against Bahrain to win the group. Also, poor Iraq, after not being allowed to play temporarily by FIFA, nevertheless managed to rise and win against China, and will hopefully continue to next round together with Australia by defeating Qatar in their last group 1 match (in the Asian qualifiers, as in the African, the top two teams go on to a second group stage).

The World Cup in South Africa is on its way!

More teams heading for the World Cup 2006

Yesterday, a number of new teams joined the already qualified, to book their tickets for Germany 2006.

All the African teams are ready:

• Ghana: It was just a formality for the strong Ghanaians to ascertain their participation, by destroying Cape Verde. Go Ghana!
• Togo: Most Europeans probably hardly know where Togo is... But they won their group ahead of the popular Senegalese from the 2002 World Cup, and shall not be underestimated.
• Côte d'Ivoire: A very strong team, with Chelsea star Didier Drogba in front. They had some luck in the last game though, as Cameroun missed a last minute penalty against Egypt at home, that gave the spot away to the Ivorians.
• Angola: Another newcomer that won the group ahead of the strong Nigerians; they will surely be interesting to watch in Germany.
• Tunisia: The defending African Champs got their spot with a 2-2 at home against Morocco.

In South America, Argentina and Brazil were joined by two teams:

• Ecuador: With 0-0 in Quito against Uruguay, the Ecuatorians have made it to their second world cup in a row. In 2002, they were out in the first round, but after defeating a strong Croatian side.
• Paraguay: After defeating Venezuela away 1-0, they will be participating in their 7th world cup, third in a row.

There is still a strong fight for the fifth spot in South America, which gives a play-off match against Australia. The contenders are Uruguay, Colombia and Chile. I will not hide my strong sympathy for Colombia, who will be facing Paraguay in Asuncion on Wednesday.

In Europe, Germany and Ukraine have been joined by six teams:

• Netherlands: With an impressive 2-0 victory in Prague, the Orange machine (and their great fans) will be a welcome nation in Germany.
• Italy: The Italians are now qualified with a typical 1-0 victory against Slovenia.
• Portugal: Maybe the Portuguese were not out for revenge against little Liechtenstein (after their 2-2 in October 2004, Liechtenstein's first point ever!), so although their 2-1 home-victory may seem meager, it still booked them tickets for Germany.
• Poland: The Poles were already mathematically qualified, and they did not play yesterday. They still have one match against England, to fight for the first spot of the group.
• England: With a hard-fought 1-0 victory against Austria, the English are mathematically qualified, at least as one of the best runner-ups. Next Wednesday's match against Poland is about the honour of who wins the group.
• Croatia: Their third World Cup in a row, after defeating the strong Swedes 1-0 in Zagreb.

Sweden and Serbia-Montenegro are both only one step away from qualifying. In the meantime, France is having difficulties in Group 4, which is now being led by Israel. Other teams are struggling for the runner-up spots, and thus a play-off match: Turkey, Denmark, Spain, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovakia, Russia, Romania, Czechia. All these teams still have a lot of sweat and hardship ahead of them...

In the Central- and North American zone, one new team joined the USA and Mexico:

• Costa Rica: The Ticos were an entertaining team in both 1990 and in 2002, and will be very welcome in Germany. They qualified last night after a resounding 3-0 victory against the USA in San Jose.

The number four of this zone, will get a play-off match against either Uzbekistan or Bahrain. It is now Trinidad and Tobago, closely followed by Guatemala.

The Uzbekistan-Bahrain match (which had to be re-played due to a strange referee decision) ended 1-1, so it still remains to be seen which of these four nations we will see in Germany. But it will certainly be a newcomer.

We now have 24 teams out of the 32 to go to Germany. Next Wednesday and Thursday, we will know a few more!