The-Shot.Net Writers Club - World Cup 2006 without Cameroon & Co - Will Africa arrive with 2nd class teams?

A look at FIFA's African ranking, even including the results of the World Cup qualifiers shows: of the top 6 African teams 5 are missing out 2006. Similar looks the situation if you consult the bookmakers for their adjustments of the strength of the teams for the Nations Cup. Four of the five top favorites for Egypt will not be at Germany 2006.
Hardly anybody would claim that Togo or Angola will do better in Germany than Cameroon, Nigeria or Senegal had done.
Still the question stands: Why are those not there instead?

There are several elements which have contributed to the desaster of the established and the success of the outsiders and I will try to name some in the following. A bunch of them can be associated with the word 'administration' but to pack it all into that one case would be unjust, too.

1) CAF - the continental organisation running the process.
I don't know how decisions are made at CAF. But one could imagine they are made by a board which decides in one meeting after a short discussion under the impression of a particular problem. The consequence: decisions are onedimensionally considered and one problem is soluted on the expense of creating another, at that moment underrated or invisible.

It looked that way when the qualifying mode was determined.
First decision: to determine the teams to qualify at the Nations Cup final tournament, similar to the way the qualificants for Youth World championships are determined. This would have shifted the advantage in favour of strong 'tournament teams' and those who have organisational troubles during the usual qualifying periods. But it also would have featured the hosts and more than before luck might have played a role.
Then it was discovered that the associations might have lost valuable income through TV rights because the qualifiers are the only source for those for many. Suddenly more seemed to speak against the idea and a new decision was needed.
Second decision: The qualification was shifted back to the usual group mode.
Six teams in a group were enough to guarantuee a sufficient number of attractive matches and the combination of Nations Cup and World Cup qualifyers was designed to fit into the FIFA calender and keep the groups open and fairly played until the end.
There weren't any pullouts but it dIt did not work out fully anyway: Whether Tunisia or Morocco qualified was not at last decided through the different circumstances at their away games at Kenya. And Benin, clearly without a chance left, used the Cameroon match as a test match for their youth squad if reports are right.
Also the mode left a third to nearly half of the African associations without a competition match for two years because a preliminary knockout round determined who would reach the honey pots. Later qualificants Angola would have almost gone out here.

The biggest problem the mode evoked is the impact on the chances of the African teams at Germany and who wopuld qualify. This has two reasons:
1) In Europe, South America, North America or Asia, a lot is done to make it likely that the best qualify, through backdoor systems in case of a draw might pitch the strongest together. This way Spain qualified and Czech Republic, at the last World Cup it had been Germany the later finalists.
Not in Africa. Of five groups only the first would qualify. Although the experience of 2002 when three of the four then strongest teams were pitched into one group (Senegal, Morocco, and Egypt) could have told a lesson: In 2002 only one of five African teams reached the second round, Africa had the worst continental record.
So it happened again. Côte d'ivoire and Cameroon, the most promising powers for 2006, were drawn into one group, making clear from the beginning that only one could be at Germany to win for Africa. And if not enough, Egypt, arguably as strong as any other team of the other groups, was added to. Bad luck that Morocco, the most promising young team was drawn against Tunisia, their jinx opponents, which they can't seem to beat.
It left three groups with much weaker competition, in which even Guinea, the third team from the Morocco, Tunisia group might have had chances to qualify.
2) Big groups meant many matches. But those were not played in double editions like on the other continents: Qualifiers had to be played in the European summer break 2004 and the summer break 2005. A time when due to the claims of CAF officials 'Nations Cups are impossible because of the climate', but when World Cup qualifiers seem possible. The problem: exhausted players that will have had no holidays for two years in 2006 and actual pullouts at the times of matches to avoid stress and injuries like with Jay Jay Okocha for Nigeria. Others might have not played that focussed as they thought the long campaign would allow to turn around things still late. At least with Nigeria the summer matches were an important element in the failure.
This lack of focus at the big ones was the chance for outsiders who were able to focus all their powers for the big goal.

Let's look individually at the cases to find more reasons.
Case 1: Togo comes in in front of Senegal.
That Senegal could not keep up the level entirely is rather normal because an overaverage performance would not be overaverage if easily to reproduce. But when Senegal became Africas best World Cup package in 2002 everything worked together and the unit performed to the maximum possible. After the success, heads became bigger on all levels, and more energies went into converting the success into an individual one. Political plays to prove whose role was the most important and who should determinethe direction, questions which club to play for, which coach to have, seemed more important as ordinary qualifiers against Congo.
The distractions were enough to lose some points, and have had it come all down to the summer break of 2005 when Senegal dropped another valuable 2 points at Congo and had a must win home game against Togo.
In a weak group Togo had made the most of their chances collectiong more points than any other group winner and snatched a 2:2 draw at Dakar.
Ironically Togo label themselves as the new Senegal, and indeed they resemble those in the fact that a determined group of mainly French based players qualified with a strong focus on every single match, due to the effective work of an exceptional coach.
But there is a difference: Togo's players often come from lower divisions, unlike the Senegalese who 2002 consisted of all very good French first division players.
In the end Togo not at last had qualified because of the seeding system and luck in the draw as Senegal only from 2000 to 2002 had that level the seeding tag attached to them.

Case 2: Côte d'Ivoire in front of Cameroon
That the Côte d'Ivoire have qualified for Germany 2006 is no surprise to experts. They rae at least among the top five African teams of the moment and they seem to grow stronger with every game.
Their qualification is only a surprise because it came to the expense of Cameroon which means that the strongest team of Africa will sit out at the World Cup and watch Togo and Angola play there instead.
With such strong teams in the race, not to forget Egypt, it all came down to luck in the end. A penalty in the final minute of the Cameroon-Egypt match was the decider, if one accepts the time series as the determinante.
Ironically the match told the same story as the Cameroon-Sudan match where the lions had been lucky already to get away with a late winner. On the other hand one could claim that the lions away match at Sudan cost them the points.
Now whether they could have done more in a particular match only the players themselves will be able to tell. Although the coaching discussions might have distracted, Cameroon still appeared more focussed than any of the other favorite failures.
Cameroons failure merely seems a combination of bad luck in the draw, bad luck and nerves in the last match, and a system which has left no back door.

Case 3: Ghana in front of South Africa
It had been a gift for Ghana to been drawn into the group with the most 'overseeded' team of the 2002 qualificants South Africa. In 2002 already South africa had profited from the system and a favorable draw, this time the team was much too weak to come near qualification and Ghana, putting all the quarrels and ego problems between officials and players, all the inconsistency behind, and after seeming to have wasted deciding points in the opening match, rallyed to eventually become an African world cup team.
They cannot be mistaken for the likes of Togo and Angola, they are a first rank African team.
This group was weak through overseeding of South Africa, which never have had the 'top 5' level for 6 years or more.

Case 4: Angola in front of Nigeria
The classic. Once I read 'Nigeria should have been the brazil of Africa'. The sentence of the journalist Anver Versi refered to the depth of talent in the West African state with the biggest population of Africa, also their joy of the game and style. The term 'should have been' already suggested when written (1980's) that there must be something wrong with Nigerian football that it constantly underperforms, except from a short golden period in the 90's.
Big egos, inconsitency, administrational squarrels, officials and politicians interfering, bonus rows, players pulling out, pulling in, a new coach every other weekend, this direction, that direction. The football hysteria did leave not much more than improvisational talents to work with on the pitch and that is not enough.
Already in 2002 Nigeria should have paid the price but they had been drawn into a such weakened group that they gort away. Ghana, then opponents, had the same problems even bigger and their eventual challenger Liberia was such a modest outfit which would not even win one match at the Nations Cup, and thus failed in the deciding match.
Not so Angola this time. THe Angolans had not one a single away gamne in the competition for years but they got the result in their last match against Rwanda.
Nigeria lost most of their points in the summer breaks of 2004 and 2005 when players were torn between the need to recover and recreate and serve their team in apparent walk overs in an easy group where there seemed no challenger.
In the end a team qualified that plays decent football, will be well prepared at Germany, but has limited talent though: Angola has even hardly ever be seen at a Nations Cup final.

Case 5: Tunisia in front of Morocco
Ok, no surprise you would say. Still I believe Morocco had been the team with more prospects at Germany. Tunisia can be described with solid, well organised, Morocco is more explosive, exciting.
Eventually it was bad luck to have been drawn with Tunisia into one group. Tunisia are alwayys able to organise a perfectly prepared campaign and will hardly be beaten in a qualifying system like this one, not even by Cameroon.
At world Cup finals with most teams able to prepare relatively well, their talent though will be limited, who would predict Tunisia as a potential African World champion?
Morocco remained undefeated and lost in the comparison of the Kenya away matches in which FIFA had the biggest influence. While Morocco had to fight an ambitious Kenyan home team in front of a hostile crowd, Tunisia were benefited with playing against a lacklustre Kenyan team in front of nobody because FIFA had punished Kenya after the Morocco game.
They had punished Morocco.

The final draw eventually has left an open situation: While the two teams with the best prospects have been drawn in very difficult groups, the other three are left with seemingly softer opposition. It might be that no team reaches the second round, it might as well be that all five leave rather positive impressions with more than one team advancing this time.