by A few years ago, one of the greats of African football invited me to his home for dinner. While his wife was grilling fish and plantains, we watched Sunderland beat Arsenal in the FA Cup. Gradually, various former players began to turn up. As they talked, it slowly dawned on me that they were planning a coup against the president of their country’s football federation.
One of the biggest problems, I was told, was that the sports ministry paid the salary of the national coach but they had little idea about football. The Federation, like many others, realized that if they nominated a European, the salary would be higher; the higher the salary, the more there was to be gained. Hence the fleets of French tourists in African football.
Related: Cameroon’s new generation aims to ‘create its own history’ against Nigeria
This is not to say that European coaches were, or are, bad for African football. Some of them – such as Hervé Renard, Claude Le Roy and Winfried Schäfer – were clearly beneficial. Belgian Tom Saintfiet stepped down as Gambia coach after their group exit at the Africa Cup of Nations this week but has done a superb job guiding the Scorpions to the finals twice where they had never previously qualified .
This is not to say that every weak appointment of a European by an African nation is necessarily corrupt: sometimes federations are unimaginative. But after an eventful first fortnight at Afcon, which produced not only the best football seen in the competition this century but also extreme drama, it feels like the wind of change is blowing through the continent.
Of the 24 sides, only three had a coach with one French nationality. To put that in context, 27% of the coaches at the previous 10 tournaments were French. There were also three in Cameroon in 2021. The last time there was a lower percentage was in South Africa in 1996.
It is perhaps not entirely unreasonable to suggest that the result is a more progressive football in the group stage, as the influence of the thinking of Aimé Jacquet and Didier Deschamps is reduced and coaches prioritize winning and what is best for their nations, rather than the sort to avoid. of defeat can taint CV.
All three sides with French coaches reached the heights but none covered themselves in glory. Hubert Velud, 64 years old, came second in the group behind Angola, who managed the best. This is his 22nd management position and his third in an African nation. As Togo’s coach, he was shot in the arm in a terror attack shortly before the 2010 tournament in Angola. Sébastien Desabre, whose Democratic Republic of Congo have drawn all three group games, is 47 years old but is on his 15th job and his second with an African nation.
But the one who got worse was Jean-Louis Gasset, 70 years old, former assistant coach with Paris Saint-Germain and France. He was sacked by the host after the initial victory Ivory Coast on Guinea Bissau was after a pair of defeats. Chasing a goal and falling behind against Nigeria, Gasset continued to throw forward, resulting in nothing but traffic jams against a deep 5-4-1. In similar circumstances against Equatorial Guinea, Gasset came up with a similar solution and then his side suffered a complete tactical and mental breakdown as they fell to a humiliating 4-0 defeat.
After an attempt to sign Renard on loan from France Women was rebuffed, ex-Reading midfielder Emerse Faé, who has no managerial experience, is in interim charge for Monday’s last-16 game against the defending champions, the Senegal.
Senegal, by far the best side in the group, seems to offer the model. Since taking charge in 2015, Aliou Cissé, as well as continental success, has qualified for the World Cup twice. He stands as the leader of a wave of coaches brought up in European academies who then brought that experience back to their national teams.
Related: Ivory Coast sack Gasset before sneaking into the last 16, and Ghana ax Hughton
Djamel Belmadi resigned as Algeria coach after their exit from the group but, although the staleness had set in, what he achieved at the Nations Cup in 2019 cannot be ignored. Morocco’s Walid Regragui, who became the first African team to reach the semi-finals of the World Cup in Qatar, is the biggest threat to Senegal.
Or take Amir Abdou, the coach of Mauritania. He was born in Marseille and has joint French-Commercial citizenship. The 51-year-old coached Comoros for eight years, leading to their first qualification for the 2021 Cup of Nations with their stunning win over Ghana. Now he is overseeing an even more remarkable story.
In 2011, Mauritania fell to 207th in the world ranking. They were forced to withdraw from the Nations Cup qualifiers the previous year. Then Ahmed Yahya took over as president of the Federation. Funded with €10m from the Fifa Goal Project, they renovated the national stadium, built a modern headquarters and set up an academy (they have released a promotional video with incomprehensible bombastic music which at one point, vaguely focuses on the foreign , what they point to. a white wall visible; then you realize they’re showing off the air conditioning unit, a poignant detail of how poor facilities used to be and how far they’ve come). Mauritania have qualified for three consecutive Nations Cups and, last Tuesday, against Algeria, the 2019 champions, they recorded their first Afcon victory to qualify for the last 16.
They face Cape Verde, who have been known at the Cup of Nations for the past decade, but that should not detract from how extraordinary it is that a nation of 500,000 is so regularly bleeding the noses of the established powers. Their rise has come largely under coaches who did not benefit from upbringing in European academies: first the air traffic controller Lúcio Antunes and now the former combat defender Bubista.
Half of the coaches who started the tournament were managing their own nations, a proportion that remained constant across the previous two tournaments as well. (By contrast, three sides at the Asian Cup have “home” coaches). But for the French traveler, night draws in.
