A few years ago, one of the greats of African football invited me to his home for dinner. We watched Sunderland beat Arsenal in the FA Cup while his wife grilled fish and bananas. Slowly various former players began to emerge. As they talked, I slowly realized that they were planning a coup against the president of their country’s football association.
One of the biggest problems, I was told, is that the sports ministry pays the national coach’s salary but doesn’t know much about football. The Federation, like many others, had realized that the salary would be higher if they nominated a European; The higher the salary, the more it was necessary to skim. Hence the French journeyman squadrons in African football.
Relating to: Cameroon’s new generation aims to ‘create its own history’ against Nigeria
This does not mean that European coaches are bad or bad for African football. Some, such as Hervé Renard, Claude Le Roy and Winfried Schäfer, were clearly useful. Belgian Tom Saintfiet resigned as Gambia’s manager this week following their group stage elimination from the Africa Cup of Nations, but he has done an outstanding job taking the Scorpions to the finals twice despite having never been eliminated before.
Not every inadequate appointment of a European by an African country is necessarily corrupt: sometimes federations lack imagination. But after a remarkable first two weeks at Afcon, which featured not only the best football seen this century but also extreme drama, it feels as if a wind of change is blowing across the continent.
Only three of the 24 teams had a coach of French nationality. To put this into context, 27% of the coaches in the previous 10 tournaments were French. In 2021, Cameroon also had three. A lower rate was last seen in South Africa in 1996.
It may not be entirely detrimental to suggest that more progressive football in the group stage is an outcome, as the influence of Aimé Jacquet and Didier Deschamps’ ideas has faded and coaches prioritize winning and what is best for their country rather than avoiding this ranking. A defeat that could tarnish a CV.
All three teams with French coaches reached the knockouts, but none could achieve victory. 64-year-old Hubert Velud showed the best performance, with Burkina Faso finishing second in the group behind Angola. This is his 22nd job at the helm and his third in an African country. As Togo’s coach, he was shot in the arm in a terrorist attack shortly before the 2010 tournament in Angola. Sébastien Desabre, who finished all three matches in the group with a draw with the Democratic Republic of Congo, is 47 years old but is in his 15th and second duty in an African country.
But the person who had the worst result was 70-year-old Jean-Louis Gasset, a former Paris Saint-Germain and France assistant coach. He was sacked by the home team after a pair of defeats following Ivory Coast’s first win against Guinea-Bissau. Chasing goals when trailing against Nigeria, Gasset continued to push forward, which only led to congestion against the deep-lying 5-4-1. Against Equatorial Guinea, under similar circumstances, Gasset came up with a similar solution, in which his team suffered a complete tactical and disgruntled collapse and suffered an embarrassing 4-0 defeat.
After an attempt to sign Renard from France Women was rejected, former Reading midfielder Emerse Faé, who has no managerial experience, took temporary charge of Monday’s last-16 tie against defending champions Senegal.
The side that offers this model is Senegal, by far the best team in the group stage. Since taking over in 2015, Aliou Cissé has delivered continental success as well as qualifying for the World Cup twice. He stands as the leader of a wave of coaches who trained in European academies and then brought that experience to their national teams.
Relating to: Ivory Coast sacks Gasset before reaching last 16, Ghana leaves Hughton behind
Djamel Belmadi stepped down as Algeria coach after their group stage exit, but while he may have become stale, his success in winning the Nations Cup in 2019 cannot be ignored. Walid Regragui’s Morocco, who became the first African team to reach the World Cup semi-finals in Qatar, arguably represent the biggest threat to Senegal.
Or take Mauritania’s coach Amir Abdou. He was born in Marseille and has joint French-Comorian citizenship. The 51-year-old was Comoros’ coach for eight years, leading them to their first Nations Cup qualification and legendary victory over Ghana in 2021. Now he’s leading an even more remarkable story.
Mauritania fell to 207th place in the world rankings in 2011. They had to withdraw from the Nations Cup qualifiers last year. Later, Ahmed Yahya took over the presidency of the federation. With 10 million euros in funding from the Fifa Goal Project, they renovated the national stadium, built a modern headquarters and launched an academy (at one point, surprisingly to an outsider, a trailer featuring incongruously flashy music focused on what was what). They released the video). a blank wall appears; then you notice they show the air conditioning unit; This is a poignant detail that shows how bad the facilities used to be and how far they have come.) Mauritania have qualified for three consecutive Nations Cups and last Tuesday recorded their first Afcon victory by reaching the last 16 against 2019 champions Algeria.
They face Cape Verde, a familiar presence in the Nations Cup over the past decade, but that should not reflect how extraordinary it is that a country of 500,000 can so regularly bloody the noses of established powers. Their rise has been largely thanks to coaches not trained in European academies: first air traffic controller Lúcio Antunes and now pugnacious former defender Bubista.
Half of the coaches starting the tournament were managing their own countries; this rate remained constant in the previous two tournaments. (By contrast, all three teams in the Asian Cup have “home” coaches.) This should be a positive sign for the African game, and it also looks set to produce better football. But night is approaching for the rumpled French journeyman.