Why Africa hasn't won the FIFA World Cup

1. INDIVIDUAL SKILL MYOPIA

Many African teams go into the world cup with the naïve mindset that they will do very well simply because they have a bundle of highly individually talented players. What they still seem not to have realized till date is that the more advanced soccer nations have acquired the ability to seriously limit the effectiveness of brilliantly creative players of opposing teams, while on the other hand creating highly effective tactically sound soccer teams that do not need every player to be a wizard with the ball. The top European and South American teams need not more than 2 or 3 really gifted creative players on the pitch at any time, with the rest of the team just focused on perfectly implementing their manager’s tactics, particularly defensive tactics.

It is noteworthy that none of the last 3 World Cup winning teams had a player that was generally considered the very best player in the world in their ranks when the won, at least not in the same way as Brazil had Pele going into the Mexico 1970 and Argentina had Maradona going into Mexico 1986.

African teams at the world cup must rely less on individual brilliance and more on tactical intelligence, mental discipline, organization, commitment, and cohesion.

Brilliant players are still needed, but African teams must have a plan B when they these players are heavily marked by opposing teams. They must also be able to tactically and psychologically reduce the impact of the top players of the European and South American teams (most importantly) in matches played against them.

The Cameroonian side, including Roger Milla, that was able to achieve an African record of 5 consecutive matches in 2 separate world cups without conceding defeat was not that much a breathtakingly creatively gifted side in a real sense!

African Player Dribbling