When will a african team win the world cup?

it was discussed here in denmark and a director from FCK said that he didnt think a african team would win it for at least 50 years. i thought that was extremme but i can see where he is comming from because african teams havent gotten better through time. i mean we have teams like cameroon/ivory coast at the top and then maybe nigeria/ghana just below. now i have always liked their style since it was about just going out there and playing. allthough it wins praise it rarely wins cups. nigeria judged from the last and current U-20 WC have a very bright future so they might be the force soon again. for the upcoming world cup drogba and kalou would be a bit to old allthough they would have salamon kalou by then. ivory coast also seems to be the only team that has a real chance currently since they can play cynical style which they showed at the african nations cup where they were very defensive and organised but they chose to play a much more attacking style in the world cup which might have been their outdoing in the end. anyway im going for 15 years+.

Africa has some very good teams though: Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivorie, Senegal, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria.

I give us a better chance of winning the WC before an African team. All we need to do is get rid of the current football directors.

I think no team from outside europe-south america will win in the next 15 years. well, maybe mexico. make it Latin America.

supermadrid wrote:it was discussed here in denmark and a director from FCK said that he didnt think a african team would win it for at least 50 years. i thought that was extremme but i can see where he is comming from because african teams havent gotten better through time. i mean we have teams like cameroon/ivory coast at the top and then maybe nigeria/ghana just below. now i have always liked their style since it was about just going out there and playing. allthough it wins praise it rarely wins cups. nigeria judged from the last and current U-20 WC have a very bright future so they might be the force soon again. for the upcoming world cup drogba and kalou would be a bit to old allthough they would have salamon kalou by then. ivory coast also seems to be the only team that has a real chance currently since they can play cynical style which they showed at the african nations cup where they were very defensive and organised but they chose to play a much more attacking style in the world cup which might have been their outdoing in the end. anyway im going for 15 years+.

Very difficult question. They have a ton of highly gifted players on the continent these days, and they even have a few qualified coaches also. It's basically now or never for them in 2010. If we don't see an African team in the semis at least, it will probably take ages for them to be really challenging elsewhere.

todo wrote:I think no team from outside europe-south america will win in the next 15 years. well, maybe mexico. make it Latin America.

I always believed that quality teams such as México who are very good at many areas of the game, but who aren't great at any particular ones didn't have a chance. This change until they now have a Brasileiro-Mexican in Giovanni Dos Santos, and a Uruguayan-Mexican in Nery Castillo.

These two players have added that special touch of genius to a Latino team such as México to have a chance of winning International competitions.

with the right coach in charge i can see the ivory coast going to the semi's in the up coming world cup

Its a very good question, like a lot of the others i share the view that whilst Africa does have the raw talent and ability of most other footballing continents i can't see an African country winning it for some time now.

The trouble is mainly in the fact that with all the 3rd world debt they have there is nil chance of improving their academys and growing good young players, so even if a Drogba or an Eto'o does show up now and again i think that too many good young African players slip through the net or go unnoticed and don't have their talent properly developed.

Finally, the fact that since Pele's famous declaration that an African country would win it within the 20th century the best that the good African countries can do is make the 1/4 finals and even then they're boxing above their weight.

Whilst there are many African teams that go into World Cups capable of causing the odd upset here and there, unfortunately no African country has really shown any sign of going the distance and winning it

I thing is are they tactically good enough , talent wise well you can say Etoo,Essien,Drogba etc, at the moment winning any cup seems a very tactical thing , stopping your opponent playing and using their weakness as your strength rather then let your strength become your weakness so I am not sure that they are good enough in that aspect of the game.

Rasiak-9 wrote:Its a very good question, like a lot of the others i share the view that whilst Africa does have the raw talent and ability of most other footballing continents i can't see an African country winning it for some time now.

The trouble is mainly in the fact that with all the 3rd world debt they have there is nil chance of improving their academys and growing good young players, so even if a Drogba or an Eto'o does show up now and again i think that too many good young African players slip through the net or go unnoticed and don't have their talent properly developed.

Finally, the fact that since Pele's famous declaration that an African country would win it within the 20th century the best that the good African countries can do is make the 1/4 finals and even then they're boxing above their weight.

Whilst there are many African teams that go into World Cups capable of causing the odd upset here and there, unfortunately no African country has really shown any sign of going the distance and winning it

I think its because you're only used to those imbalanced African teams, like Togo, Senegal, Ghana etc..
In the past there have been a couple of complete teams, Cameroon 1990, Nigeria 1994, even Ivory Coast 2006 were complete teams that had quality all on all parts of the pitch. All the otehrs were lacking something, whether a striker or a midfield or the defense or keeper etc.

The next 'complete' African team has a good chance of reaching the Semis. From there on it can be anyone's guess.
A good African team is more than a mere 'hurdle' that's possible to upset the big boys. The teams I mentioned were capable of going all the way.

Cameroon 1990 we're lacking intelligence.

I've also gone for 15 years+. There are some very good African teams and they are improving all the time. At the moment I think that these teams are just slightly below the level of some of the better European teams like Spain and Portugal although I can see this gap closing even more in the near future. The problem with answering this question is that there are already a number of teams who have the quality to win a World Cup but who have fallen short. Even if the best African teams were at the same level as Europe's and South America's best teams, there is still no guarantee that they would win the World Cup in the next few tournaments.

Cameroon 1990 were naive in the sense that they were cheated out of the tournament. They may have lacked intellegence but it was a team that relied on moments of individual brilliance rather than a team effort - in essence then not so much different from most teams, even top teams like Brazil.

But Cameroon 1990 were much more than a team that was merely capable of upsets.

Hardly cheated, they tried to cripple our Gary.

Sheffield gunner wrote:I've also gone for 15 years+. There are some very good African teams and they are improving all the time. At the moment I think that these teams are just slightly below the level of some of the better European teams like Spain and Portugal although I can see this gap closing even more in the near future. The problem with answering this question is that there are already a number of teams who have the quality to win a World Cup but who have fallen short. Even if the best African teams were at the same level as Europe's and South America's best teams, there is still no guarantee that they would win the World Cup in the next few tournaments.

That's basically it.
Even if they improve it still only a possibility they'll win, not a guarentee. Hell, we haven't won it yet!

Are or were there African teams that had the possibility (as in quality, not as in just one of the 32 competitors) to win the WC? Yes.

And there will be again in the future.

I'd say about 30 years - in the 2030s.

They're capable of making good players but no country has the set up yet to make lots of very good players and tactical astuteness.

DD wrote:

Rasiak-9 wrote:Its a very good question, like a lot of the others i share the view that whilst Africa does have the raw talent and ability of most other footballing continents i can't see an African country winning it for some time now.

The trouble is mainly in the fact that with all the 3rd world debt they have there is nil chance of improving their academys and growing good young players, so even if a Drogba or an Eto'o does show up now and again i think that too many good young African players slip through the net or go unnoticed and don't have their talent properly developed.

Finally, the fact that since Pele's famous declaration that an African country would win it within the 20th century the best that the good African countries can do is make the 1/4 finals and even then they're boxing above their weight.

Whilst there are many African teams that go into World Cups capable of causing the odd upset here and there, unfortunately no African country has really shown any sign of going the distance and winning it

I think its because you're only used to those imbalanced African teams, like Togo, Senegal, Ghana etc..
In the past there have been a couple of complete teams, Cameroon 1990, Nigeria 1994, even Ivory Coast 2006 were complete teams that had quality all on all parts of the pitch. All the otehrs were lacking something, whether a striker or a midfield or the defense or keeper etc.

The next 'complete' African team has a good chance of reaching the Semis. From there on it can be anyone's guess.
A good African team is more than a mere 'hurdle' that's possible to upset the big boys. The teams I mentioned were capable of going all the way.

I see your point but the fact is no African team has yet gone beyond the 1/4's and were talking about WINNING the world cup not just doing quite well. Do you really think that in the forseeable future there will be an African team with the tactical intelligence together with the talent to do BETTER than EVERY ONE of the big guns Argentina/Brazil/Italy/Germany/England/Portugal/Spain/France/Holland etc.

In a way what you have said has strengthened my point, even the most complete teams can't get past the last 8 mark and there are still many African countries that go to a world cup setting themselves the objective of getting a win/point/goal just to give the country some pride.

Look at the Ivory coast last year, very complete team, experienced manager, played well in all of their games but the fact is they didn't even get a point out of Argentina or Holland and these are the teams that they will need to beat consistently if they were to be champions.

Believe me, an African World Cup winning side is a good 20/30 years away

If Holland can't win a WC with the level of talent they've had at their disposal, then an African team is going to take a 100 years to win it.

It takes something special to win a WC. I could see an African team in the final, but there will always be a Brazil or Germany to beat them.

Puro wrote:Africa has some very good teams though: Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivorie, Senegal, Morocco, Egypt, Algeria.

I give us a better chance of winning the WC before an African team. All we need to do is get rid of the current football directors.

it is all about organisation puro... As long this is shite no African team will win it! But in the end of the day we will get an African team to lift the trophy...

I voted for 11 years...

I say never. Been in too many african countries and seen how the best intentions of a few men will always be squandered by the personal bias and entitlement of most of the men.

Like to see a rise in the african game to the point where it could happen soon. They have to show a real solid number of performances over some years to become worthy for me to put money on. But England won it in 66 and came from nowhere...

I think an African team can win it if all the players decide to play for their motherland rather than the European teams. If you look at the France WC team they had many players who could have played for an African team, but chose not to.

At the moment the two best strikers in the world are African and the best central midfielder is African, with a good manager an African team could win it.

Bon voyage Rossi wrote:I think an African team can win it if all the players decide to play for their motherland rather than the European teams. If you look at the France WC team they had many players who could have played for an African team, but chose not to.



At the moment the two best strikers in the world are African and the best central midfielder is African, with a good manager an African team could win it.

Essien

No offence Rossi but I think that argument's bollocks. Even if an 'African' team could beat a 'Rest of the World' team there are more countries in Africa than in any other continent - the talent's spread thinly across individual countries.

In comparison if you took a combined S American team it would whoop the ass of an African team. Success in football tends to correlate to large population (e.g. Brazil), high standard of living (W Europe), and a football tradition (which lets out USA, Japan and China so far).

Bon voyage Rossi wrote:I think an African team can win it if all the players decide to play for their motherland rather than the European teams. If you look at the France WC team they had many players who could have played for an African team, but chose not to.

At the moment the two best strikers in the world are African and the best central midfielder is African, with a good manager an African team could win it.

who are you thinking off? i mean france had many but i cant think of many up and coming players that have chosen their european country.

I think that it will take a long time UNLESS there is a tournament where the big teams don't perform. It seems unlikely at first, but recently we've had 2 - Euro 2004 and WC2002. Africa was unlucky that their window of opportunity in 2002 was their worst WC in a long time. Imagine if in 2002 we would have had the Nigeria team from '94 or the Camerun team from Italia '90. I think these teams would have had a great chance of making the final and even upsetting Brasil.

So I think that in the near future at least, this possibility is heavily reliant on a lot of factors going Africa's way.

Never...they will never win it. The charm about African football is the unpredictability, those players arent made for tactical ways of playing. They arent constant enough as well, the top African team these days is Elbenbeinkuste, but for how long?

No, it remains a battle between European teams and Argentina and Brazil. No other nation can break this. Only the USA but they just dont seem to care. Asians are way too weak built to ever win the WC, same as Native Americans.

So African teams can win..but they have to lose their enitre mentality and way of playing...which is never.