World Cup 2018: A tournament to forget for Africa

Published on: 04 July 2018

This year's World Cup may very well be the most entertaining in the tournament's 88-year history, and at the time of typing this, we haven't even reached the end of the second round.

Despite still being in the early stages in Russia there have already been a massive amount of big casualties. Defending champions Germany crashed out in the group stages for the first time ever, Argentina couldn't find its way past France in the second round, and Portugal fell foul of Uruguay at the very start of the knockout stages.

What all that means is the tournament is more open than ever before, and we could even witness a country winning the World Cup for the first time in its history.

It really feels as if a prediction Pele made decades ago could finally come true. Truth be told, it is already too late for that prediction to come true. The Brazilian soccer superstar claimed that an African side will have won a World Cup by the year 2000.

Here we are in 2018 and unfortunately, that still hasn't happened. Not only that, but the African nations at this current World Cup seem to be further from achieving that dream than they have been in a long time.

The African sides that made it to this World Cup were Senegal, Tunisia, Morrocco, Egypt, and Nigeria. With the likes of Sadio Mane playing for Senegal and Mohamed Salah for Egypt, a couple of those countries came into the tournament with a lot of hope.

Unfortunately, none of them even made it past the group stage. Senegal and Nigeria came the closest, narrowly missing out to Japan and Argentina respectively.

Salah's injury stopped him from really being able to help Egypt make a mark. Last and perhaps least, neither Morrocco nor Tunisia ever really looked as if they had the legs to go far in the tournament.

That meant despite five African teams traveling to Russia for the World Cup, none of them made it through to the knockout stages. That fact becomes even more damning when you realize that it's the first time that has happened since the World Cup was hosted by Spain in 1982.

That year Cameroon and Algeria were the only African sides to qualify for the tournament and no one was really expecting either of them to progress. In the present day though more is expected of African sides, and to have zero out of five make it out of the groups is not a good sign for the continent's soccer future.

There has been so much promise shown by African sides in recent years too. Senegal made it all the way to the quarterfinals at 2002's tournament, eventually losing out to Turkey.

Then eight years later Ghana came even closer to World Cup glory. In 2010, the Ghanaian side lost on penalties to Uruguay in the World Cup quarterfinals. What made that loss even more painful, not just for the nation of Ghana but for neutral fans around the world, was Luis Suarez's actions during extra time.

Ghana would have netted a winner before penalties were needed if the Barcelona star had not used his hand to keep the ball out. Suarez was sent off and the ensuing penalty his the crossbar.

For a long time, it looked as if Africa's best hope of winning a World Cup would be via Ivory Coast. On paper, the African nation looked terrific. Players such as Didier Drogba, Gervinho, and Yaya Toure all playing in the same side together.

Normally African sides are cursed with only having one great player at a time if they're lucky. Even though Ivory Coast managed to qualify for three World Cups in a row, they never made it past the group stage in any of them. For some reason, those big players couldn't work together on the big stage.

As you already know, Ivory Coast didn't even qualify for this World Cup, the first time they have failed to do so since 2002.

What does this all mean for Africa and the continent's future in world soccer though? It doesn't look promising. Sides like Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Ghana used to bring something to World Cups, a threat and some flare.

In Russia this summer they showed very little of that. There's no doubting that as a continent, Africa loves soccer, and the tournament held in South Africa in 2010 was a huge success.

It doesn't seem to have furthered their players' ability wise though, and an African side going all the way at a World Cup is still a long way off.

Credit: TheSportster.com

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