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.

Instead of improving on these performances, there has been a sharp decline. In Germany 2006, all the African countries flopped and that made Ghana’s second round qualification such a big feat. The Black Stars after their baptism of fire against Italy quickly recovered and won two matches to become the only African country to reach the last 16. Even though it was not the first such feat by an African country, the fact that Ghana was the only African survivors made big headlines.  Not even the 3-0 whitewashing of Ghana by Brazil in the second round could convince the praise singers that Africa was not making her presence felt in the FIFA World Cup.

Come South Africa 2010 and as a bonus for the continent, Africa had six representatives for the first time in World Cup history. All the talk was that this was Africa’s moment of destiny and Africa will show the world how to play football and all that jazz. But what do we see? Once again they have all fallen by the wayside leaving lucky Ghana as the sole survivor.  The fact that Ghana made such heavy weather of qualification scoring only two penalty goals in three matches and conceding two has probably not been critically analyzed.

You may call Ghana the only shining star in a dark horizon but the first knock-out stage match on Saturday is going to be a great test of character against a vastly improved USA squad that have  scored in each of their three first round matches twice coming from behind to earn a point.

Critical observers including me, will find out whether the swarm of foreign coaches who have invaded Africa of late have made any significant improvement in the standard of play on the continent.  Ghana’s Serbian coach Rajevac Milovan in particular will be put to test whether he is on top of his job as far as team selection is concerned and whether he would vary formations to suit the occasion or stick to his stereotyped formations that do not produce goals. The argument that Ghana doesn’t have a good striker to fetch the goals is untenable because the last time I checked, FIFA has not made any rules restricting goal scoring to strikers alone.  Ask Brazil, Argentina, Spain and the other serious football playing nations.

This stage of the competition is where the boys are quickly separated from the men and this is where you see football tacticians winning games from the bench. England coach Fabio Capello for instance is bent on proving a point. He says he is happy to have rediscovered the team he knew from the qualification. How I wish Rajevac would say a similar thing about my favourite Black Stars of Ghana.

It is really disappointing to see that despite all the confidence Africa has in foreign coaches, there seems to be little or no transformation in the standard of play of these countries with foreign coaches.  Individually, some of these players shine in their respective foreign clubs but fail to gel at home. And this must be the responsibility of the foreign coaches in charge who take home fat salaries that make mockery of what their local assistants receive.

I have a feeling that at the end of South Africa 2010, many African countries will take a second look at the issue of foreign coaches and strike a balance whether it is that worthwhile to spend so much on some of these coaches who are so anxious to take appointments even a day to major tournaments as if they were magicians. There is a saying in my part of the world loosely translated means “everybody wants to transact business with a buffoon” so there you are.

I am happy that my prediction of stunning surprises at South Africa 2010, are coming to pass.  Farewell Italy and France. France stole the show in Germany 2006 with the great conductor Zidane being the top attraction but this is Africa, the land of surprises.  So sorry you will have to watch the final on TV. Better luck in 2014.

Cheers everybody and keep loving sports.