Africa beats the odds to set stage for best World Cup to date

Roger Milla is 70 now and, if that makes those who remember the 1994 World Cup feel old, it also helps illustrate how long African football has seemed to have been waiting for another breakthrough World Cup. Since 1990 when, with Milla a mere 38, Cameroon beat Argentina and reached the quarter-finals, there has been the sense a team from the continent could go further, or several could emerge as challengers.

In 2022, when Vincent Aboubakar secured Cameroon’s second greatest win on the global stage by overcoming Brazil, albeit a second-string Selecao, it ended a wretched record for the Indomitable Lions: their nine previous World Cup games had produced eight defeats and a chaotic draw. They seemed to have regressed and, when no African side reached the last 16 in Russia, so did the continent as a whole. Cameroon’s class of 1990 remains arguably Africa’s finest and most famous World Cup team. Senegal, in 2002, and Ghana, in 2010, also got to the last eight; but for Luis Suarez’s impromptu display of goalkeeping, the Black Stars would have been semi-finalists.

The last day of the 2022 group stages had a nostalgic feel: Cameroon bloodying the noses of another favourites, Suarez reunited with Ghana and their wish to retire him from this stage granted, the Uruguayan ending up in tears. Yet Ghana also went out, followed four hours later by Cameroon. African football has been littered with near-misses and what ifs; Andre Ayew’s missed penalty against Uruguay, like Asamoah Gyan’s skied spot kick 12 years earlier, can be added to the list.

Had either made it to the last 16, it would have made this a statement tournament for the continent. It may yet be: their two representatives in the knockout stages is their joint best ever, Morocco became the first African team to win a group for 24 years and there is a chance for a fourth quarter-finalist or a maiden representative in the last four.

All of which represents a shift in the right direction after 2018. It could be called dramatic progress; certainly there is evidence of incremental improvement, greater strength in depth and a shared competitiveness.

Consider both an overall picture of just five defeats in 15 – whereas 2018 brought 10 losses and a mere three wins - and a host of excellent individual results for underdogs. Cameroon defeated Brazil. Tunisia beat France, even if, again, it was a team populated by understudies. Morocco triumphed against the 2018 semi-finalists Belgium and drew with the finalists in Russia, Croatia, keeping a clean sheet in both. Senegal were a few minutes from a draw against the Netherlands. Ghana only lost 3-2 to Portugal in a game with a questionable penalty decision and a great chance for a last-minute equaliser. Indeed, Cameroon, Tunisia and Ghana go out after each beating a team who will feature in the last 16. The heaviest defeat suffered by an African side so far is just 2-0. In 2018, it was 5-2. No one is thrashing them now.

There are other encouraging factors: African sides have been managed well by African managers and two of them, Senegal’s Aliou Cisse and Morocco’s Walid Regragui, will ply their trade in the last 16. It is worth point out, too, that many of the continent’s finest talents are not in Qatar: only five of the 10 men shortlisted for the 2022 African Player of the Year award are present, with Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane, Riyad Mahrez, Victor Osimhen, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Naby Keita and Sebastien Haller all notable absentees. That Senegal qualified for the last 16 without Mane, the runner-up in the Ballon d’Or, feels particularly admirable.

If it points to a strength in depth in Senegalese football, it is a wider theme. The beaten finalists in this year’s African Cup of Nations, Egypt, and the 2019 winners, Algeria did not qualify for the World Cup. There may be relatively little to separate Africa’s eight or 10 top teams; there are others who would probably have been hard to beat and capable of winning a game had they been able to reach the World Cup.

Which has its difficulties. As the outgoing Ghana manager, Otto Addo, has eloquently pointed out, Africa has only had five spots and he believes it should have been more. That only two of those five are left in the tournament is a counter-argument. Yet as none of the African sides is a top seed has rendered it harder; each has been pitted against at least one big gun and Morocco finished above two. It can render their other games still more important and Cameroon paid a price for not beating either Switzerland or Serbia.

And, amid the expansion to 48 teams, Africa will have at least eight representatives, and potentially a ninth, in 2026. It does not look a case of positive discrimination: instead, it is an opportunity a chance to show more African sides are almost as capable of being competitive against anyone. Because if 2018 was arguably Africa’s worst World Cup since 1974, 2022 may go down as its best ever. So far, anyway.