There’s more than a small whiff of the provocative in Jonathan Wilson’s damning assessment of the so-called “progress” of African nations internationally since Tunisia beat Mexico in World Cup ’78, and perhaps too little concrete explanation as to why an African side has yet to progress deep into the WC knockout stages. Plus, Wilson sometimes falls in the trap of grouping an entire continent of many different nations into one footballing subheading (one poster quipped whether African football writers wonder if European football is progressing).
But it’s a worthy read, in part because it highlights the dangers of relying on a foreign professional league to hone your best talents. Wilson writes:
Talk of a new slave trade is unhelpfully emotive, but there is an unpleasant traffic in vulnerable and often naive young players, and it seems hard to deny that the demands of the European market have shaped the tactical development of African football. Tom Vernon, who runs an academy near Accra in Ghana and scouts for Manchester United, speaks of the “Pape Bouba Diop” template: having seen the success of big, muscular west African players, clubs go to west Africa looking for more big, muscular players and so that sort of player is prioritised, something that in part explains the dearth of west African creative players in the decade between Abedi Pelé, Jay-Jay Okocha and Kanu and the emerging generation of Kwadwo Asamoah, Dede Ayew and Gervinho.
Several of the commenters on the piece echoed this perception. One noted several instances where the creative vision of players in the mould of African players like Yaya Toure or Cheik Tiote has been overlooked, while their ability to “break-up play” is lauded by pundits and commentators alike, unconsciously reinforcing the dangerous stereotype of the “muscular” African player.
Unconscious racism aside, Wilson asserts that the current state of affairs—with a good number of star African players regularly progressing to the latter stages of the Champions League—has led to complacency at some of the national associations. While it would an extreme generalization to presume all African nations are equally under-performing, clearly the failure of several African nations stacked with elite talent to break through in international competition demonstrates that producing a steady pool of overseas stars is not enough. For one, strong, competitive domestic leagues are required to encourage players of all types and abilities—whether muscular centre-forwards or svelte creative midfielders—to develop their skill.
Yet while it’s often asserted that strong domestic leagues are what produce competitive international sides, that’s not the whole story. A strong professional league is usually the product of a strong, powerful national soccer association, with roots in player development at all levels. Despite the modern fantasy of the autonomous Premier League, without the FA and the Football League—the bedrock upon which sits the English top flight—the available player pool becomes dangerously thin.
Of course there are outside factors at play. A strong domestic FA requires economic stability, a government that generally respects the rule of law, and disincentives to local corruption (all to varying degrees of course). And unlike the US (if Jamie Trecker is to be believed), there are no shortage of kids in Western Africa who want to become the next Pele. But at some point, African associations, much like our own national association in the CSA, need to move beyond a cozy complacency with the status quo. Just what needs to happen for an African nation to break into the global footballing elite however is still far from certain. At best, we’re still reliant on vague and overgeneralized diagnoses.
