The sages who said history does repeat itself in football maybe damn right eighteen years ago ( 1992 to be precise )Ghana’s football legend Abedi Ayew Pele missed the chance of captaining the Black Stars for the first time in an African Cup final after picking a second yellow card in the competition. The Black Stars struggled to a pulsating draw with Cote d’Ivoire after extra time and lost on penalties. more »

The sporting world is quite interesting. Of course the main essence of sports, competitive or otherwise is to provide excitement. And that is why in case of upsets, disappointments and even calamities, the popular refrain is that ‘it is all in the game'. more »

In 1984, when Cameroon won the Africa Cup of Nations for the first time , Ghana were already four time champions and had won the original cup for keeps in 1978. It was however becoming clear that Ghana were fast losing her shine as Cameroun dominated the African soccer scene with impressive shows in the World Cup of 1982, 1986 and 1990. more »

The FIFA World Cup statistics clearly show that despite the emergence of a number of potential African stars, the overall standards of football in Africa at the national level is going down.It was twenty years ago that Cameroun took the world by storm and made an impressive show in Italia ’90 by reaching the quarter finals. It took 12 more years until another African country, Senegal, made a similar spectacular show in Korea/Japan 2002 where they caused a sensation by defeating France, the defending champions. more »

I am not too fond of describing the ongoing South Africa World Cup 2010 as Africa’s World Cup. I am not privy to any financial or material contributions by any African country to the organization of the global football festival. And so as far as I am concerned, it is South Africa World Cup and all the credit for the marvelous organization and the first class sports stadia must go to Nelson Mandela’s home country. more »