Africa News blog
African business, politics and lifestyle
Who is Africa’s best footballer?
Never has there been as much bounty in terms of African talent as there is now.
Although the continent has long been a conveyor belt of talent, genuine world stars from the African continent have been few and far between.
Liberia’s George Weah was winner of the World Player of the Year and also won Europe’s Ballon d’Or, but it could be argued both awards came in a quiet year.
Mozambique-born Eusebio achieved his fame and repute in the colours of colonial Portugal and has never had his achievements genuinely accepted by African fans.
But over the last years, a sprinkling of world class stars have emerged, leaving the suggestion African football has never been a more exciting commodity than at present.
Togo need a miracle
It is hard to fathom what the motivation for Jean Thissen’s decision would be. He takes on the job as national team coach of Togo just over two weeks before the resumption of Africa’s World Cup qualifiers and with the very real prospect of having to do without his best player.
Thissen is the third new coach to take over at the helm of a side who are still in the World Cup race and set out at the end of this month on the final leg of the fight for one of the five berths for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa.
The 63-year-old, who is a former Belgian international and has coached in Gabon, Morocco and Tunisia, parachutes in to take charge of Togo’s team after Frenchman Henri Stambouli walked out last year.
But talk of taking on the virtually impossible. ‘Les Eperviers’ (the sparrowhawks) have the most daunting start to their Group A campaign, starting on March 28 against Cameroon on neutral territory in Accra where Togo are forced to play their home matches because of a ban on their own stadium in Lome.
Cameroon are hot favourites as an exciting new generation of talent bursts through their ranks.
To make matters worse, there is the strong possibility that Togo will go into the game without talismanic captain Emmanuel Adebayor.
The newly crowned African Footballer of the Year pulled a hamstring playing for Arsenal in the English premier league just weeks ago and is supposedly sidelined for some time to come. Arsenal with its galaxy of stars is noticeably poorer for his absence, so imagine what a blow the injury is to Togo’s hopes.
adebayour is a useless and good for nothing son of a gun. he is also a backstabber n we arsenal fans wish him all the worst 4 years 2 come.
best african player ever is augustine okocha (nigeria), followed by anthony yeboah (ghana). everything else is nonsense, reuters doesn’t know anything about football.