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Reflections on the opening game of the
26th Africa(n) Cup of Nations
Or, The African Africa Cup of African
Nations in Africa
by Dominic Hilton, Marc Sidwell & A S H Smyth
Monday, January 21, 2008
Dominic Hilton writes:
Here’s what the African Nations Cup (or is it the Africa(n) Cup of
Nations? The organisers can’t seem to decide…) would look like if it was
being held in Germany:
(Source: FIFA)
Watching the opening game of the 2008 African Nations Cup/Africa(n)
Cup of Nations, between hosts Ghana and Guinea, in Accra, I was
therefore delighted to see that:
(Source: My notepad)
Meanwhile, The Lizard has been running a poll these last few days
asking readers if Kenya should be banned from competing in the African
Nations Cup. The results make for fascinating reading.
A mere 7% of voters said Kenya should ‘definitely’ be banned from
participation.
9% of voters correctly identified that ‘Kenya isn’t in the African Nations
Cup’.
But a whopping 84% of voters cast their vote for ‘The what?’
To my mind, this proves one thing and one thing only: that no matter
how efficient they may be, however well-lubricated in the piston
department, the Germans will never host the African Nations Cup.
Not even if it’s the Africa(n) Cup of Nations.
A S H Smyth writes:
The Ghana-Guinea game was one of the most boring things I’ve seen
since that story about ‘playboy’ Lembit Opik in yesterday’s Sunday
Times.
Possibly it was the fault of BBC Sport’s coverage (were they
commentating from the UK?), but despite the 44,000 fans and their
44,000 vuvuzelas – or ‘hooters’, as my learned colleague calls them –
Accra’s Ohene Djan Stadium seemed to have all the atmosphere of the
British Library on a damp Wednesday afternoon.
Of course, one reason why the fans might not have been too caught up
in the game was that the football was just plain bad.
I tuned in late, and didn’t need the 0-0 score-line to tell me I’d missed
nothing. Ghana, it transpired, had been suffering from a nasty case of
metallurgy, and had a goal disallowed; but they’d generously waited for
me to get settled on the sofa before really loosing interest.
It was like playing Fifa 2006, only with a much lower goal-tally. Poor
control and ropey passing; ludicrous attempts on goal which ended up
near the corner flag; insanely risky bicycle kicks from the 6-yard box;
lunging, studs-up tackles of an unschooled viciousness that would have
made Denis Wise blush. And then random and inexplicable acts –
instinctive brilliance or sheer fluke? – as you accidentally press the R1
and X buttons simultaneously, while reaching for a Twix.
It took a (questionably-awarded) penalty from Ghana’s striker Asamoah
Gyan to give the game any zip at all. That was ten minutes into the
second half.
Then Guinea’s Oumar Kalabane (‘a fish: he smells like a fish’) scored, and
the desperate commentator suddenly decided that it had become a
‘pretty exciting game now’. The score had been level for all but 7
minutes of the match, and by my count, there’d been about 80 seconds
of exciting play, all in. But hell, he’s the professional…
Ghana’s 89th-minute winner, courtesy of Sulley Muntari, did little to
redeem the astonishing tedium of the game, unless you count the fact
that Ghanaian president John Kufuor took the opportunity to do a very
‘80s thumbs-up celebration.
Ultimately, the highlight of the entire business was hearing Michael
Essien referred to as ‘a complete player’. Well, good on ‘im: the ladies of
Accra will be delighted to hear it! (In his defence, he was also awarded
the fair play award; but I’d like to think that’s not what the commentary
team were getting at).
Maybe what the Ghanaians and Guineans were thinking about while they
‘played’ was the massive pay-cut they were taking – from Chelsea,
Everton, Blackburn, wherever – in order to earn the mere honour of
playing for their country. But for 93 minutes, I watched the twenty
outfielders (plus subs) trying – not very hard – to pull off tricks for
which they quite evidently did not have the skills (who was paying their
bills, one wonders… and why?). Playing, in short, like schoolboys.
In his defence of their efforts, commentators made much of the fact
that the turf was unplayable. True enough, I have taught at schools
which I suspect had bigger budgets for lawn-mowing than the African
Nations Cup has for its entire operation (which ain’t really fair on a
continent of seriously committed fans – fans who are making sponsors
like MTN a lot of money, too).
But the turf wasn’t that bad, and anyway when I was at school we
learned to play on any old surface using a flattened Coke-tin for a ball
(that’s right – I was brought up on the set of Billy Elliot). And these
guys are Premiership, Bundesliga, Serie A. Top-flight professionals. What
exactly is their problem?
Boring football aside, we ought to put things in perspective.
At the close, Ghana’s (French*) coach, Claude Le Roy, remarked
astutely: ‘we knew it was very important to win the opening game.’
Our British commentary team supported Le Roy’s perceptive
pronouncement, calling the host nation’s victory ‘the right result for the
tournament’.
Who knew it was so simple? Bernard Laporte must be kicking himself…
--
* Former imperialist aggressors are indeed amply represented in the
managerial echelons, but they’re always from the great power that
conquered the little country next door.
Marc Sidwell writes:
What is the African Nations Cup? Is it in the British Museum? Do they
want it back?
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
Also see:
26th Africa(n) Cup of Nations
Or, The African Africa Cup of African
Nations in Africa
by Dominic Hilton, Marc Sidwell & A S H Smyth
Monday, January 21, 2008
Dominic Hilton writes:
Here’s what the African Nations Cup (or is it the Africa(n) Cup of
Nations? The organisers can’t seem to decide…) would look like if it was
being held in Germany:
- The fans would wear alpine hats and lederhosen and sway back
and forth on wooden benches in the stands while slapping each
other’s thighs. - If they felt the need to applaud, they would do so only in strictly
regimented unison. - On the pitch, the competing bierhalle teams would play their
football like expertly engineered, well-oiled internal combustion
engines. - The entire African Nations Cup/Africa(n) Cup of Nations would be
rigorously organised, extremely efficient, and deeply unsettling,
like a Nuremburg rally.
(Source: FIFA)
Watching the opening game of the 2008 African Nations Cup/Africa(n)
Cup of Nations, between hosts Ghana and Guinea, in Accra, I was
therefore delighted to see that:
- The stands were littered with trumpet-players, horn-players, tuba-
players and hooter-squeezers. - On the pitch, the teams were totally disorganised, ill-disciplined
and hopeless at defending their own areas - plus, nobody invaded
the Sudetenland. - The players were full of individual flair and extremely good at
attacking their opponents. (The lack of internal combustion
engines resulted in the match being awarded the Al Gore Eco-
Friendly Award for the Promotion of Al Gore.) - The Guinea goalkeeper had a giant print of a lion’s face on his
jersey that he almost certainly purchased from The Disney Store. - The fans were so busy having their own party in the stands that
there was virtually no reaction to anything that actually happened
on the pitch. - The President of Ghana sat on some sort of throne and looked for
a brief moment like he was more interested in using the stadium
for assassinating his opponents than for football tournaments. - Spectacular overhead kicks were regularly used to clear the ball
out of defence and defenders routinely strangled opposition
strikers in the penalty area (when they weren't strangling the
referee). - At least half the players looked like they were not interested in
the game and were dreaming of being injured in Chelsea's new
Abramovich Spa and Grill. - Where it wasn’t dust, the grass was at least 10 inches long and
the ball kept getting lost for five-ten minute spells. - The sound from the African broadcast reached the viewing
audience several seconds before the picture, defying the basic
laws of GCSE physics. - The trumpets, horns, tubas and hooters appeared to be following
no recognisable pattern of any kind, resulting in a cacophony of
random notes that sounded oddly like a Pierre Boulez composition. - The finale of the opening ceremony was a lone firecracker limply
going off, recalling London's unforgettable 'River of Fire'. - The rest of the ceremony involved local Ghanaians holding
umbrellas as props while dancing, despite there being no sign of
rain. - The two teams were nicknamed The Black Stars and The
Elephants. - It took the BBC’s chief commentator 9 hours to get his pass to
grant him access into the stadium. (Why can't they do that here
with Motty?) - The game was so much better to watch than Bolton vs. Everton,
mainly due to all the reasons above.
(Source: My notepad)
Meanwhile, The Lizard has been running a poll these last few days
asking readers if Kenya should be banned from competing in the African
Nations Cup. The results make for fascinating reading.
A mere 7% of voters said Kenya should ‘definitely’ be banned from
participation.
9% of voters correctly identified that ‘Kenya isn’t in the African Nations
Cup’.
But a whopping 84% of voters cast their vote for ‘The what?’
To my mind, this proves one thing and one thing only: that no matter
how efficient they may be, however well-lubricated in the piston
department, the Germans will never host the African Nations Cup.
Not even if it’s the Africa(n) Cup of Nations.
A S H Smyth writes:
The Ghana-Guinea game was one of the most boring things I’ve seen
since that story about ‘playboy’ Lembit Opik in yesterday’s Sunday
Times.
Possibly it was the fault of BBC Sport’s coverage (were they
commentating from the UK?), but despite the 44,000 fans and their
44,000 vuvuzelas – or ‘hooters’, as my learned colleague calls them –
Accra’s Ohene Djan Stadium seemed to have all the atmosphere of the
British Library on a damp Wednesday afternoon.
Of course, one reason why the fans might not have been too caught up
in the game was that the football was just plain bad.
I tuned in late, and didn’t need the 0-0 score-line to tell me I’d missed
nothing. Ghana, it transpired, had been suffering from a nasty case of
metallurgy, and had a goal disallowed; but they’d generously waited for
me to get settled on the sofa before really loosing interest.
It was like playing Fifa 2006, only with a much lower goal-tally. Poor
control and ropey passing; ludicrous attempts on goal which ended up
near the corner flag; insanely risky bicycle kicks from the 6-yard box;
lunging, studs-up tackles of an unschooled viciousness that would have
made Denis Wise blush. And then random and inexplicable acts –
instinctive brilliance or sheer fluke? – as you accidentally press the R1
and X buttons simultaneously, while reaching for a Twix.
It took a (questionably-awarded) penalty from Ghana’s striker Asamoah
Gyan to give the game any zip at all. That was ten minutes into the
second half.
Then Guinea’s Oumar Kalabane (‘a fish: he smells like a fish’) scored, and
the desperate commentator suddenly decided that it had become a
‘pretty exciting game now’. The score had been level for all but 7
minutes of the match, and by my count, there’d been about 80 seconds
of exciting play, all in. But hell, he’s the professional…
Ghana’s 89th-minute winner, courtesy of Sulley Muntari, did little to
redeem the astonishing tedium of the game, unless you count the fact
that Ghanaian president John Kufuor took the opportunity to do a very
‘80s thumbs-up celebration.
Ultimately, the highlight of the entire business was hearing Michael
Essien referred to as ‘a complete player’. Well, good on ‘im: the ladies of
Accra will be delighted to hear it! (In his defence, he was also awarded
the fair play award; but I’d like to think that’s not what the commentary
team were getting at).
Maybe what the Ghanaians and Guineans were thinking about while they
‘played’ was the massive pay-cut they were taking – from Chelsea,
Everton, Blackburn, wherever – in order to earn the mere honour of
playing for their country. But for 93 minutes, I watched the twenty
outfielders (plus subs) trying – not very hard – to pull off tricks for
which they quite evidently did not have the skills (who was paying their
bills, one wonders… and why?). Playing, in short, like schoolboys.
In his defence of their efforts, commentators made much of the fact
that the turf was unplayable. True enough, I have taught at schools
which I suspect had bigger budgets for lawn-mowing than the African
Nations Cup has for its entire operation (which ain’t really fair on a
continent of seriously committed fans – fans who are making sponsors
like MTN a lot of money, too).
But the turf wasn’t that bad, and anyway when I was at school we
learned to play on any old surface using a flattened Coke-tin for a ball
(that’s right – I was brought up on the set of Billy Elliot). And these
guys are Premiership, Bundesliga, Serie A. Top-flight professionals. What
exactly is their problem?
Boring football aside, we ought to put things in perspective.
At the close, Ghana’s (French*) coach, Claude Le Roy, remarked
astutely: ‘we knew it was very important to win the opening game.’
Our British commentary team supported Le Roy’s perceptive
pronouncement, calling the host nation’s victory ‘the right result for the
tournament’.
Who knew it was so simple? Bernard Laporte must be kicking himself…
--
* Former imperialist aggressors are indeed amply represented in the
managerial echelons, but they’re always from the great power that
conquered the little country next door.
Marc Sidwell writes:
What is the African Nations Cup? Is it in the British Museum? Do they
want it back?
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
Also see:
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