The 2015 Africa Cup of Nations

2015 will be a great football year. Besides the outstanding leagues, the Champions League, there will also be a women's World Cup in Canada, Gold Cup, Copa America, an ongoing Asian Cup in Australia, and today the Africa Cup of Nations starts in Equatorial Guinea.
African Cups of Nations have become better and better over the years, and this one is set to be great, despite missing the defending champions of Nigeria, who failed to qualify. Rather than saying it is because Nigeria were bad, I would argue that the fact that the champions did not qualify shows the versatility and strength in depth of African football. The only ones who will not be missed are Morocco, who were correctly disqualified for not wanting to host the tournament for their exaggerated panic for Ebola. I hope they stay out of African football for a long time.
The groups are as follows:

Group A:

• Equatorial Guinea
• Burkina Faso
• Congo 
• Gabon

The hosts, who did actually not qualify for the tournament, have high expectations nevertheless as they play in front of their fans. Congo were the ones who qualified ahead of Nigeria, so will also have to be reckoned with, although expectations are probably not that high.
Last tournament Burkina Faso made it to the final, and will again be a team to watch, although one should also note that Gabon won their qualification ahead of exactly the Burkinabe. A lot of the Gabonese hopes are set on Pierre-Emerick Aubemegyang, who is certainly one of the players to watch in the tournament, but also watch out for Burkina Faso's own Jonathan Pitroipa, who was the most scoring player in Africa during qualification!
This is set to be a very close group!

Group B:

• Tunisia
• Cape Verde
• DR Congo
• Zambia

Cape Verde have been improving in huge strides over the last years, and in fact they also qualified in their group ahead of the Zambians, who are an experienced side, but not likely to repeat their fantastic victory of 2012.
Although DR Congo qualified as the best third placed team, it was behind the giants of Cameroon and Ivory Coast, and should thus not be underestimated. Nevertheless, the favourites of this group should be the Tunisians with an experienced side of European and Tunisian based players who qualified ahead of Senegal and Egypt.

Group C:

• Ghana
• Algeria
• South Africa
• Senegal

This looks like the Group of Death. Senegal qualified ahead of Egypt, even defeating the former champions in Cairo. South Africa are also back in the tournament after eliminating the champions of Nigeria in Uyo by tying them 2-2 in an intense match. Most players are home based and present a compact side.
Ghana enter the tournament as favourites yet again, this time under the tutelage of the former Chelsea manager Avram Grant. He has gone for a more young side with a lot of experience though, and  captained by a very experienced Asamoah Gyan.
Finally, Algeria, after their splendid World Cup, are certain to be going for the title. They have a strong side with the fantastic trio of Sofiane Feghouli, Yacine Brahimi and Nabil Bentaleb having become household names in Europe.
I cannot wait to see the Algerians in action, but of course, my heart is with GHANA!

Group D:

• Ivory Coast
• Mali
• Cameroon 
• Guinea

Player for player, Ivory Coast has one of the strongest sides in the world. They are captained by the African player of the year, the fantastic Yaya Toure, and a potent striking force with Gervinho and Wilfred Bony. But Ivory Coast has excelled in disappointing, the last time at the World Cup in Brazil. That said, they must be considered among the candidates for the title.
Cameroon in fact qualified ahead of Ivory Coast. Without any big superstars, Cameroon look more stable, and should be focusing at washing away the pathetic display they gave at the World Cup, where they were an embarrassment to watch.
Neither Guinea or Mali seem to be threats to Cameroon and Ivory Coast. Guinea were one of the last teams to qualify when they defeated Uganda in their last match, which was played in Casablanca due to the Ebola outbreak in Guinea (and yet the weird Moroccans did not want to host the tournament...), and expectations will not be as high as for other sides. Mali has an old side led by the veteran Seydou Keita, and only qualified after a last match victory over Algeria (who had already won the group).

Manchester City-Everton

After an all night flight from Monrovia via Brussels I was not too tired to go to watch Manchester City-everton at the absolutely beautiful Etihad stadium in Manchester. The home team won 1-0 on a penalty goal by Yaya Toure. Sergio Aguero got injured and both Joe Hart and Tim Howard had amazing saves.

But for me the best was to experience two great teams in the best league in the world.

The popularity contest winner (or Balon d'Or)

Cristiano Ronaldo is certainly a deserved winner of the 2013 FIFA Ballon d'Or award as the best player of 2013. He continued to be a wonderful player and has throughout the year stunned fans with fantastic goals and consistent quality performances for both Real Madrid and Portugal, whom he almost singlehandedly qualified for the World Cup. The award has been coming Ronaldo's way for many years, but he has been in the shadow of another great, Lionel Messi, who took the award the last four years. This year he "only" came second.
Although I congratulate Mr. Ronaldo, one really has to question an award that does appear more like a football popularity contest. 184 national team coaches and 184 team captains have a vote, as well as 173 media representatives, and one can see how each one voted on FIFA's website. Studying the results one realizes that in reality this award is given with a high degree of subjectivity (and surely us football fans are able to justify any subjective football opinion in the guise of subjectivity) that more resembles the voting of the Eurovision song contest, in particular amid the national team representatives! Just a few curious observations:

• 18 different players were among the first choices of the 2 x 184 coaches captains! So 18 different players are among the "best" in the world.
• 12 captains voted for a team-mate as best player in the world, either in the national team or in his club. While most of them are not surprising (like Iker Casillas voting for Ronaldo or Philipp Lahm voting for Frank Ribery), some are more curious, like Mario Yepes voting for Radamel Falcao, Gianluca Bufon voting for Andrea Pirlo (Pirlo's only vote) or William Ashley voting for Gareth Bale. Some also clearly vote for their buddies, like Lionel Messi voting for Andres Iniesta or Robien Van Persie voting for Arjen Robben.
• Luis Suarez received five votes in top 3 among the captains: his teammate Martin Skrtel voted him as best and so did his captain in Uruguay Diego Lugano. David Gerrard put him in his list as did the captains of Iraq and Turcos & Caicos Islands.
• The top contenders, like little children, did not give a single vote to each other: Lionel Messi voted for his buddies Iniesta, Xavi and Neymar, while Ronaldo voted for Radamel Falcao (quite obscure), Gareth Bale and Mesut Ozil (at least both Messi and Ronaldo had the decency not to vote for themselves!).
• The coaches were perhaps less varied, but many of the coaches who could, did vote for "their guy": Didier Deschamps voted for Ribery, Paulo Bento for Ronaldo (not surprising considering that he may not have been in the world cup without him!), Alejandro Sabella for Messi, Vicente del Bosque for Xavi, Erik Hamren for Ibrahimovic, Adam Nawalka for Robert Lewandoski Jose Pekerman for Radamel Falcao, and Chris Coleman for Gareth Bale. A couple of notable exceptions were Oscar Tabarez, who voted for Franck Ribery, or Luis Felipe Scolari, who voted for Ronaldo.
• With such voting it is perhaps disappointing that the Danish coach Morten Olsen did not vote for Nicklas Bendtner... But there did seem to also be a (very) small tendency to vote for players from ones region (Olsen voted for Ibramovic from neighbouring Sweden). Surely not among the South American captains and coaches where only three of each voted for Lionel Messi... But of 22 votes (from 1 to 3) received by Africa's best player Yaya Toure, 18 came from African countries (from captains, coaches and media). The remaining were from Belgium, Greece (both captains had Toure in their top-3), Cambodia (the coach had him as third choice) and Grenada (a media had him on third). 
• Asia in particular is a Messi-Ronaldo sphere of influence.

Perhaps all this just shows that it is all a bit arbitrary; I think it was no different when Messi won the previous years. That said, I also believe there is a memory lapse involved; if Messi had not been injured the last couple of months of the year, he may have had a better chance of winning.
Finally, there is certainly also a tendency to favour offensive and spectacular players. It is all but impossible to win this prize for defensive players, no matter how solid they are!

In any case, Ronaldo was the most popular player of the year, and he should be congratulated because he deserves it. He is a fantastic player indeed, but it is not because of this award!

Best players of 2013

My (very personal) top ten list of the best players of 2013 is as follows:

10. Mario Gotze: While in Borussia Dortmund the German youngster was one of the leading players in taking the Germans to the Champions League final. He was purchased for a record sum by Bayern Munich, where he remains struggling to become a steady player, but still has time.
9. Yaya Toure: Manchester City has many great players, but the best is Yaya Toure, who is solid, technically skilled and an incredible shot. He is also a core player of the Ivorian national team that qualified for the world cup, but could have done better in the Africa Cup of Nations.
8. David Alaba: The young Austrian has established himself as a star in the best team of the world and was named Austrian player of the year for the third year in a row at the tender age of 21. He is set to become one of the world's greatest and is surely the world's best left back.
7. Lionel Messi: Yes, he continued scoring goals like a Duracell battery until his injury, but at the end of the year he was immersed in a soap opera of "sadness", tax-evasion and gossip. He was ok for the Argentinean national team, but was not the one leading them to the World Cup, and it may seem that the most glorious days are over for the Argentinean.
6. Philipp Lahm: Lahm is the captain of the best team in the world, Bayern Munich, and captains the German national team, for whom he played his 100th game in 2013. As captain of the Germans he has been an inspiration, playing as one of the world's best.
5. Zlatan Ibrahimovic: If anything, Ibrahimovic is one of the most charismatic players in modern football, but is surely also a great striker. He is the top scoring player in the French league in a Paris St. Germain side that will do great things, and is surely the best player of Sweden.

4. Neymar: For a long time I doubted whether Neymar was that good, but he has certainly won me over as a fan through hard work, humility, and skills that are out of this world. In Barcelona he has fought hard to prove himself but is now a certain starter, and in Brazil's side he was one of the leading players, a role that will also be expected of him in the World Cup.

3. Luis Suarez: As always, the Uruguayan was mired in controversy and drama, but in the fall he has managed to control himself and has become the best striker in the world for Liverpool FC, scoring many and beautiful goals. With Uruguay he has also been an important player in qualifying them to the World Cup, and if anything, the absence of Liverpool from European football in the spring, may end up with Suarez being fully fresh in Brazil...

2. Cristiano Ronaldo: Also immersed in controversy in the spring under Jose Mourinho in Real Madrid, the Portuguese has nevertheless grown to be the one player who carries a big part of Real Madrid on his shoulders. He is a complete players with extraordinary skill, and was also almost single-handedly responsible for qualifying his country to the World Cup.

1. Frank Ribery: With so many amazing players on Bayern Munich's amazing very complete side, it is almost impossible to see any one player independently of another. That said, Frank Ribery has come to show everything extraordinary about the German side, with skills, power, speed and intelligence, as well as taking responsibility when things are difficult. The last thing he also showed with France's qualification for the world cup, where he will indeed be crucial if France is to have any hopes of advancing.

United on top in Manchester (and in England)

The Manchester derby between United and City was bound the be a great match, considering the wonderful players both teams have, their eternal rivalry and the fact that they are 1 and 2 in the Premier League respectively. City were on fire as the game started, but it was Wayne Rooney who put United ahead 1-0 and 2-0 in the first half, ending City's initial dominance, and distancing themselves on first spot.
But last year City won the title by fighting back in the last match, and it was no difference this time. When Carlos Tevez came in for Mario Balotelli it seemed it gave City a boost, and with goals by Yaya Toure and Pablo Zabaleta, they got the match on 2-2, and City's hopes were clearly up as the match was coming to an end.
But in the last minute a free kick by Robbie Van Persie put United in front, giving them a victory that gives them a comfortable six-point lead in the Premier League table.
A great match; only bad thing was the behaviour of the Manchester city fans (why do we call them fans anyway?).