Disappointment

Last Friday Leones de Caracas won the Venezuelan baseball championship and there was a huge party in the city. But for a football fanatic by myself, I was more interested in the coming African Cup of Nations Final between Ghana and Egypt. However, I don't know Caracas well enough, and 11 in the morning local time on a Sunday in Caracas, nowhere is apparently showing a match in a faraway continent of a game that hardly interests them.
It was thus doubly disappointing that I could not support Ghana, and without my support the Black Stars lost 1-0 in a close match, where Egypt winning goal didn't come until the last minutes of the match.
Sad for the young Ghaneans who have had a great tournament, and who will surely be interesting to watch in South Africa this (southern) winter.
Egypt, the champions of Africa for the third consecutive time will not be in South Africa, and we can thank Algeria for that!
No matter what, I have learned from this that (1) I need to but my own TV with a cable subscription as soon as possible, and (2) that I will have to take my vacation and travel to a more favourable timezone for the World Cup!
A bad day, but nothing bad is not good for something.

Pounding Nigerian fufu!

I was unable to watch Ghana-Nigeria in the semifinal of the African Nations Cup, but sitting in my office in Caracas I followed the match online as Ghana pounded some Nigerian fufu!! I was delighted about Ghana's victory, wishing I was back in Ghana! As an old Ghanaian friend used to say, I was "happy like a Christmas Chicken!"

The 1-0 victory on a goal by Asamoah Gyan (who after also scoring the winner against Angola is turning into the great saviour for the Black Stars) was apparently hard-fought with the Wigan goalie Richard Kingson playing a great match that brought Ghana to the final
Still, Ghana's victory is amazing and augurs well for the World Cup, since Ghana is playing without some of its usual starters: Chelsea's Michael Essien, Inter's Sulley Muntari, Bologna's Stephen Appiah, Fulham's John Paintsil and Breda's dangerous striker Matthew Amoah have all been absent for different reasons, but the strength of Ghanaian football is now shown by the many (young) players that are able to take over.
Even with substitutes Ghana is one of the best teams of Africa!
And they may prove to be the best if they are hopefully able to kick the Egyptians back to the pyramids! (Egypt destroyed Algeria 4-0 in the other semifinal, getting some bitter revenge on being eliminated from the World Cup by the Algerians).
Go Black Stars!

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!

Côte d'Ivoire-Ghana

I cannot hide my subjective preference for Ghana, having lived there for many years, and seeing their progress to become one of the top African footballing nations, whom I have before said are the most likely candidate for an African finalist. However, after watching Côte d'Ivoire-Ghana last night in the African Cup of Nations, I must regrettably back off on this assertion, as Côte d'Ivoire were far superior to Ghana, and winning 3-1 was totally deserved (and it should have been 3-0 as the referee gave an unexistant penalty to Ghana in the last seconds of the match). Even when down to 10 men, Ghana was unable to put pressure on the Ivorian defense organised around an outstanding Kolo Touré. And in attack the Ivorians simply have what the Ghaneans lack: good strikers.
In the 2006 World Cup Ghana were a huge positive surprise (and I was delighted to be in Ghana myself), but many forgot that the Ghana side had one of the lowest shots-to-goal averages of all the teams in the tournament, displaying a horrible inefficiency. After seeing Ghana last night I am afraid that Ghana is still suffering from this, in spite of having an outstanding team otherwise....
I hope I am wrong, but I now believe a little less in Ghana for the world cup in South Africa.

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.