Forget about who’s going to the World Cup, the real story is who’s NOT going. African champions Egypt, Russia’s Andrii Arshavin and Yuri Zhirkov, fading Ukrainian legend Andrii Shevchenko, and Bosnia-Herzegovina’s classy striking duo of Edin Dzeko and Vedad Ibisevic – if you haven’t heard of those two, you should really get your nose out of the Premiership and catch some Bundesliga action. Of course, I haven’t even mentioned top coaches Giovanni Trapattoni and Guus Hiddink, both of whom fell short at the last hurdle, but more on those later.
Egypt’s World Cup jinx continued in Khartoum, where they lost out to Algeria in what must be the biggest match ever staged in Sudan. Two things struck me about this game: First, if ever a goal deserved to send a country into the World Cup finals, it was Antar Yahia’s superb volley, a cracking effort from an acute angle that flew into the roof of the net on Essam el Hadary’s near post. It will certainly live in Algerian memories for years to come.
Second is the fact that sealing qualification on neutral territory – rather than in Cairo last Saturday – was probably best for the Algerians. Remember, four Algerian players had already been hurt when the team bus was attacked BEFORE the Cairo match-up. I shudder to think how that Cairo crowd would have reacted had Emad Motaeb’s late header not forced the Khartoum playoff.
I think the African challenge will be weakened by Egypt’s absence though – we all saw what they are capable of at the Confederations Cup in June – and the finals will certainly be the poorer for the absence of players like Wael Gomaa, Mohammed Aboutrika, Mohammed Zidan, Hosni Abd Rabou and the evergreen Ahmed Hassan.
All the talk in Europe is about France and their handball-assisted conquest of Ireland at the Parc des Princes. There’s no question about the foul, even the main villain in the plot, Thierry Henry, has admitted as much. Yet, it’s naïve to expect that the French could have done anything different once the goal was given – there’s way too much at stake and besides, I doubt the ref would have chalked off the goal even if Henry had admitted he “had a hand in it”. Was this some big conspiracy to help France reach South Africa? I don’t buy that – even if UEFA president Michel Platini is French. I think the ref and his assistant, who were behind the play and had several players between them and the incident, just missed what looked an obvious call to Irish ‘keeper Shay Given, who was three yards away – and the rest of us who had the benefit of several replays from four different angles.
The real debate here should be about the use of technology in football officiating, something I’ve been railing about since Victor Ikpeba’s penalty was wrongly ruled out in the African Nations Cup final shoot out nine long years ago, and something the powers that be at Fifa have been too quick to dismiss. A quick review of the video would have confirmed Henry’s handball and helped the ref to make the right decision in this case. There’s an argument that it would slow down the game to stop for every little decision. Fair enough, but it could just be reserved for cases like this in which the ball is already in the net – or otherwise dead - and it would surely have taken less time than it took the ref to fight off the incensed Irish protests that followed William Gallas’s goal.
I may be wrong, but I kinda think that had France been on the wrong end of this decision, we may well be closer to the use of technology than we are now.
The other game I caught midweek was what I had hoped, given what transpired in the first leg, would be a cracking affair between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Portugal. In the end, the Portuguese won easily leaving their hosts rueing the absence, through injury, of four key regulars who had featured in the first leg, especially their inspirational captain and midfield muse Zvjezdan Misimovic. There were still a few Bosnian players that caught the eye though, not least the aforementioned strikers, Dzeko and Ibisevic, and Lyon youngster Miralem Pjanic.
I couldn’t help but wonder what could have been had the old Yugoslavia still been in existence today. Just think, they could have lined these Bosnians up alongside Croatian stars Luka Modric, Niko Kranjcar, Mladen Petric, Ivica Olic and Eduardo; Serbians Nemanja Vidic, Neven Subotic, Dejan Stankovic, Milan Jovanovic and Nikola Zigic, who will be in SA; and the less heralded but also World Cup bound Slovenians Robert Koren and Milivoje Novakovic. Mouth watering, no doubt, but just a thought.
On a final note, a word about those top coaches that will not be making the trip to SA – at least not with their current employers. I know a lot of Nigerians are hoping Mr Amodu gets canned right away to make way for another of those fly-by-night foreign “Technical Advisers” – think Messrs Bora and Vogts. It’s not that I have anything against foreign managers – I really liked Clemens Westerhof and I think sacking Philipe Troussier in 1997 was a big mistake – as long as they are of the right calibre and we give them time to work. I certainly don’t think six months to the World Cup – or two months to the Nations Cup - is the best time to appoint a new coach, yet if we must then we have to get the cream of the crop. Two of those may just be newly available in the shape of Hiddink and Trapattoni, fresh from their respective disappointments with Russia and Ireland. Now would be the time to start talking.
Enough said.
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