Is Africa’s Exit from World Cup a blessing in disguise?

Nigeria lost to Argentina in a hard-fought battle

Senegal’s defeat by Colombia was the last nail in the coffin of the African dream at the ongoing Fifa World Cup tournament in Russia. The loss also concluded the continent’s worst performance since 1982 where no single country has gone past the first round of the competition.

Despite fielding five teams with world class players from the most successful leagues in Europe and certainly boasting very impressive physical features, the continent failed to live up to most people’s expectations.

With big names such as Mohammad Salah, Sadio Mane, Victor Moses, Africa’s performance at the world cup remains a dark spot on the beautiful game, denying inspiration and hope from youngsters who could consider to pursue a career in football.

It could perhaps be from such worse performance that Africa can begin to think of a new strategy to break the world cup jinx.

This is the view that is shared by Chelsea Ivory Coast legend Didier Drogba.

Drogba told BBC that African countries need to devise new strategies on how to approach such major competitions.

He said: “I also think it is a chance for all the African teams and for the African Confederation maybe to reconsider the strategy and how we want to go forward.

“What do we want to do in the next World Cup? We have the potential, we have the money to develop, but we need more than that.

“We need to have the consistency and the structure of the European teams and the South American teams.

“We are going to be successful one day but we need to think again how we approach these big competitions.”

Uganda’s Opposition figurehead Dr. Kizza Besigye appears to agree with Drogba when he says that “Africa has great talent but must invest much more in developing, organising & rewarding our players.”

Ugandan politician Dr. Kizza Besigye on twitter

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