Analysis of the 2013 African Nations Cup
By: Sahr Morris Jr.
Unpredictable and exciting with spec- tacular performances by Africa’s best of the best is what the African Cup of Na- tions has come to be known for and it is now also evident that every single Na- tions Cup tournament produces a crop of new talents that end up becoming major stars.
Africa has been used to seeing some of the ma- jor powers in football like Egypt and Camer- oon at the tournament and these two nations have obviously been absent for the last two tournaments in a row. So what is happening to African football?
The African playground is proving to be tougher every year and there no longer seems to be room for underdogs or su- perpowers in the African game. With countries like Cape Verde, Sierra Leone and Niger causing upsets to for- mer major football powers like Camer- oon and Egypt it just shows that the playing field in Africa is leveling and on any given day any nation could be crowned champion.
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In the last nations cup, barely a year ago the Zambians sprung a surprise on the entire continent when they beat both Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire to win it all in Equatorial Guinea/Gabon and this year we saw the emergence of Burkina Faso and Cape Verde and the Super Eagles of Nigeria who a lot of bookmakers including myself did not tip to reach the finals nor to lift the trophy but they did So gone are the days of favorites and Superpow- ers in the Game. African nations are all now awake and are pushing to develop football in their countries.
What was also evident in this year’s (2013)
tournament is we saw a major power shift, wherein the North African Coun- tries who used to dominate African foot- ball were all easily dispatched from the AFCON in South Africa by their West African counterparts.
West Africa is now the hotbed for Foot- ball talents and as was seen in the quarter final where the nation to make it to that stage not from the region was the host South Africa.
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