SMILES NILE-WIDE IN OTTO PFISTER’S FORTNIGHT OF FUN

Maybe you really had to be there. Newspaper feature-writers turned into Bill Bryson immediately on setting foot in Ghana for the 2008 African Cup of Nations (ACN). Tales of sun, sand, singing, smiling Nottingham Forest strikers. Articles usually paid-off with “The football? That was horrendous??” Except it wasn’t.

It was almost as wonderful as generally perceived. Some eulogising was borne of relief that this ANC “edition” wasn’t as turgid as some international events – the 2002 ACN, for instance. But if Africa’s tournament needed establishing ahead of the fast-devaluing Copa America (increasingly reliant on domestically-based players), Ghana ’08 did it in numbers. And the best team won. Euro 2008 could scarcely be better.

This hasn’t permeated the thicker skulls among European club management. Mass debates on when the ACN ‘should’ be held were Euro-centricism at its worst. Whether in Ghana in January or Tunisia in April (2004) is down to Africa’s needs - climactic, financial etc… Although, if they held it conveniently for…say…a European mid-winter break…

National pride also puzzles European clubs when, say, Geremi prefers Tumale to Tottenham. Most ACN finalists became independent nations within the lifetimes of players’ immediate families. So national pride remains strong. And, unlike Jamie Carragher et al, players want to play for their nation.

Clubs pay wages throughout. But, as then Coventry manager Gordon Strachan said after losing two Moroccans to the 2000 tournament: “I knew this might happen when I signed them, I can hardly moan about it.” Hell, many players were signed because of ACN displays. Clubs have huge squads. They should use them.

Like many, I had Cote D’Ivoire beating Ghana in the final, not the (magnificent) third-place play-off. Until, paradoxically, their quarter-final dismantling of Guinea (fancy a team missing Bobo Balde?). Didier Drogba celebrated his goal “with particular ostentation” according to the Telegraph. Looked like a p**s-take to me. Likewise Salomon Kalou. He could have been booked for time-wasting his tap-in took so long, teasing Guinea’s defence like he was in a school playground.

They thought they’d won the tournament. And teams who think that before they’ve won the tournament are usually wrong. Holland’s Euro 2000 quarter-final dismantling of Yugoslavia came to mind for two reasons. The second was that Holland lost in the semis.

Their keeper Boubacar Barry resembled an accident black spot and his replacements were a distant worse. Swap goalkeepers and you’d swap results in their last two games. Egypt only had to hit the target to win (although they played with enough panache to do so anyway).

And, in a tournament ‘graced’ by Premier League stars, a team with hardly any (one Middlesbrough squad player scarcely counts) played the most expansive football, scored the most goals…and won. “Not many household names,” noted commentators, revealing more about the households. They won’t need Wigan/Birmingham in Cairo.

Egypt pipped Cameroon to the ‘most cynical team’ award, too, in a tournament with refreshingly little of it. Entertainingly dreadfully cynical where Cameroon were just annoying, until Andre Bikey hilariously lost a cemetery of plots in the semi-final.

Cameroon were domitable Lions until their mid-tournament friendly against a circus works’ team masquerading as Zambia. Beforehand, they’d had as ghastly a time as coach Otto Pfister, whose now-infamous “tournament for children” rant threatened to turn press ‘briefing’ into the ultimate misnomer.

He had to wait for one hotel meal until the chef had finished watching Ghana/Nigeria, Junior Agogo’s late winner averting extra-time and a diplomatic incident. God knows where the chef’s saucepans might have been shoved had the game gone to penalties. Things could only have deteriorated if Pfister got arrested for trying to join a training session after being locked out of the ground. Tournament organisers and local police duly obliged. Reaching the final was scant consolation.

BBC won the media tournament but their “coverage of every ball kicked” meant nothing when non-digital viewers could only see the final and was laid waste anyway by not showing Namibia/Morocco, the ACN’s second game. And scheduling highlights at the same time as each day’s second game was ridiculous.

Their stadia-based commentaries were a split-second delayed, particularly disconcerting after the many spectacular long-range strikes. And Simon Brotherton and Mark Bright took every opportunity to confirm BBC’s stadium presence – minutiae about conversations with groundsmen a favoured device. Studio-bound Eurosport were especially adrift when the disallowing of a Tunisia goal wasn’t apparent from TV pictures until countless replays had aired.

Until Sunday Oiliseh’s measured tones appeared on BBC3, the punditry was mediocre. Eurosport’s Stan Collymore filled every potential silence (technical term: dead air, more usually applied to radio or Mark Lawrenson). Luckily, he sometimes made sense, unlike Alan Sharif Duncan, a rightly-respected writer on African football but a Chris Eubank tribute-act on telly.

No need to tell BBC viewers Mark Bright was a striker. “For me that’s a foul” followed every tackle…on a forward. Whistle in his hand, there’d have been penalties and free-kicks every thirty seconds. Eurosport also suffered: “Tony Cascarino, striker. Gary Mabbutt, defender – should anyone be in doubt,” noted presenter Gary Imlach.

Thankfully, we were spared references to ‘Didier Drogba’s Ivory Coast’ or ‘Yakubu’s Nigeria’ – the former nearly true, the latter borderline-libel. “Emanuel Adebayor’s Togo” got pre-tournament outings. But they didn’t qualify (that’s Arsene Wenger you can hear laughing).

There were few disappointments. “Muck” was the Guardian’s intellectual take on Mali. While Morocco were “building for 2010” in huge inverted commas. Sometimes “building for…” is euphemistic for ‘crap.’ Morocco were crap. South Africa were building, picking their least-inexperienced squad since their first. Premier League-bias gave Benni McCarthy regular namechecks but South Africa missed him. They were skilful but lightweight. Garth Crooks had them as champions after a good second-half against Angola, which was perplexing. But what Crooks comment isn’t?

As perplexing was Samuel Eto’o. Never can a tournament’s top-scorer have been so ineffective, yet only Oliseh on TV dared hint at such (“he’s making the wrong runs”).

And Agogo’s popularity? Benin’s Accrington Stanley defender Ronny Bocco was favourite for the ‘most-out-of-depth-player’ award (though Stanley shipped eight in their first game without him). But Agogo, fresh from the ‘second-touch-is-a-tackle’ centre-forward school, was the winner. He was in the right place at the right time three times. Twice with winning goals from a yard – off the underside of the bar against tournament non-events Nigeria. Then alongside Asamoah Gyan for entire games. Even blasting shots halfway to Bridgford – in an Aynsley Harriott fright-mask – mattered little. What was he like?

Equally hard-working-yet-hopeless was Tunisia’s Yassine Chikahaoui, Courtney Walsh’s stunt-double…Walsh the tail-end batsman. While El Hadji Diouf, outside night-clubs, was just hopeless.

Bolton fans swear by Diouf, not at him. But he brought nothing to Senegal’s captaincy, unless there’s psychological advantage in disputing the coin-toss. No surprise that he lambasted Senegal’s FA (which one spark, mindful of Diouf’s partying, blamed on “the drink talking”), why should they escape? Referees would ordinarily win ‘worst decision’ awards. Whoever persuaded Diouf out of international retirement won here. Diouf, like his team, was sulky, petulant and under-achieving.

Crowds were poor, as per, because tickets were expensive, as per. And distributing tickets through post-offices failed. Wouldn’t have given England’s World Cup bid team any ideas, though. By 2018, all English post-offices will have shut.

Politics hardly intervened. Stalinists were comforted by the hammer-and-sickle lookalike adorning the Angolan flag. While Mohamed Aboutrika revealed a ‘Sympathy with Gaza’ t-shirt after his goal against Sudan. Aboutrika had obviously studied footage of Robbie Fowler in his “support the Liverpool Dockers” t-shirt. One might wish Aboutrika greater success, though he was probably wise not to produce the t-shirt after getting the winning goal in the final.

After another Egyptian goal, Aboutrika’s team-mates pressed their noses along the touchline in what briefly resembled a Fowler goal-celebration too far. Fortunately, they were just praying. And the only t-shirts they wore were their “Africa Champions 2008” ones, which appeared seconds after the final, suggesting a self-confidence even Cote D’Ivoire might have baulked at.

Oh, and apparently Angolan striker Manucho’s signed for Man Yoo, as mentioned every five minutes of every Angolan game. Shares in Angola Elastoplast rocketed in value, mostly down to their own keeper’s “exuberance.” Indeed, this ACN broke records for players accidentally kicked on the bonce – not even Ron Atkinson could call this defending ‘naïve.’

Naiveté was the preserve of match-fixers bribing Namibia to lose. One kick to top-scorer (only scorer) Brian Brendell’s goolies and all such bets would have been off. Though Benin coach Richard Fabisch’s face when asked about African football corruption was a picture of someone saying: “How long have you got?2

There were surprises right to the end, which did for Simon Brotherton’s preparations. As Egypt’s captain Ahmed Hassan lifted the trophy, Brotherton had his Motty-esque line ready. But no sooner had he uttered “…his smile as wide as the Nile” than Hassan’s expression turned to fear as the entire Egyptian squad jumped on his head in celebration.

A wonderful tournament from start to finish, then. It’s the Premier League which should move to a ‘convenient’ time.

‘MotorMurph’ is written by Mark Murphy

Entry Filed under: MotorMurph Column

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