Cameroon
The Nations Cup confirmed my fears for the Indomitable Lions, who are a team I usually admire. Apart from Samuel Etoo Fils and Alex Song, the only other inspiring player they had was Idrissou.
That the Cameroonians lost so clearly in the quarters to the team they surely badly wanted to beat, Egypt, (who got them out of the 2006 world cup and who HUMILIATED them at the previous Nations Cup in Ghana), showed that the this team is not yet world class.
Coach Le Guen must do a lot of work on this team if they are to qualify from a group including Denmark and Netherlands, plus Japan who are not pushovers anymore.
Ghana
Of all those World Cup bound, Ghana may be said to be strongest being that they got to the final without their major experienced players. Nevertheless, they never scored more than 1 goal in any match and this underscores their lack of scoring prowess, given that none of the experienced absentees is a pure attacking player. It would seem that Ghana's defence would have to get even tighter ifthis is to be their strong point in an ultra world class tournament.
VERDICT
Baring the kind of apparently generous officiating which helped the two Asian hosts (Japan and South Korea) get to the 2nd Round and Semi Finals respectively of the 2002 World Cup, it does not seem this will be an African World Cup in anything more than a locational sense. The Ivoriens, who of the qualifiers have the best attack, have made a sub optimal choice of manager in Sven Goran Eriksson, who, if England's Wayne Rooney is to be believed, may not have the steel to get the very best out of the super stars among the Elephants.
None of the African Qualifiers seems technically balanced, nor do any seem to possess the team spirit and mental attitude needed to guarantee even a Quarter Final Place. Indeed, the lowly rated South African team may even emerge Africa's top performers, if the last Confederation's Cup is any pointer.
I fear that this may not be Africa's best WC performance. The ambition of the highly rated contenders like Brazil, Germany, etc is not going to wane.
I would be very impressed if 2 African Teams make the Quarters. I'm just a soccer realist.
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