/ 25 June 2010

Black Stars find space to shine

Black Stars Find Space To Shine

The velvet rope surrounding the first World Cup party hosted on African soil has acted as a quality-controlling noose for five of this continent’s six participating teams.

South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Cameroon have all failed to qualify for the knockout stage of the tournament. And, at the time of writing, Côte d’Ivoire had yet to play North Korea in their final Group G match on Friday.

The Elephants were going into the match needing at least a nine-nil victory and with the hope that Portugal would lose without scoring against Group G leaders Brazil in their match in Durban on Friday. Mission impossible, it would appear.

So, it is only Ghana, then, left representing a continent that articulates its sense of self — through the tediously Pan-African-lite World Cup radio and television commercials — in a manner which, if suggested in Europe or North America, would be considered inherently chauvinistic.

African implosion
In the aftermath of the implosion of the African sides, debate has raged over an “African footballing identity” being denuded or completely eviscerated by foreign coaches — with the exception of Algeria’s Rabah Saadane, whose team exited the tournament without scoring a goal, all the other sides are coached by foreigners.

A debate that has dominated blogs, newspapers and television shows, it is an extremely anachronistic one that alludes to a time when African sides played freewheeling yet tactically naïve football.

Football has marched furiously past that time. Tactical innovations by the likes of Guus Hiddink and Jose Mourinho have meant that fripperies of football have to be accentuated by a hard-nosed pragmatism, where even the pretty teams work hard both off the ball and when not in possession. Sometimes, in the case of sides like Barcelona, they do it so well that one hardly notices.

A moment during Cameroon’s Group E match against Denmark was instructive: Samuel Eto’o, like a Mourhino-conditioned juggernaut, was chasing a Danish back pass to goalkeeper Tomas Sorensen. Running at full tilt, Eto’o motioned for his left-winger to close down the Danish rightback, Christian Poulsen. It was not done and Sorenson played the ball out to Poulsen who, with a delightful pass, found Dennis Rommedahl on the right wing. His coruscating run into the box ended with a shot at goal.

A quick transition for the Danes from defence to attack because they had space at the back.

The egos, psyches and eccentricities of African footballers are dissected at lenght elsewhere. The duty of this column is merely to highlight why, on the pitch, Ghana has performed better than their ­continental counterparts.

It is exactly because the team has, under coach Milovan Rajevac, understood that your first line of defence remains your first opportunity to attack. The closer to the opposition’s goal a team is able to win back the ball, the more direct their threat to score becomes. It is something that Ghana has done well in this tournament.

Against Germany at Soccer City on Wednesday night, and against the muscular Serbs at Loftus Versfeld a week previously, the Ghanaians pressed high up in their opponent’s half when not in possession. Something Côte d’Ivoire started doing only once they went 3-0 down to Brazil in an earlier match.

Ghana, playing a 4-3-3, has two speedy, technical wide players in Andre Ayew and Prince Tagoe, but they are also the first to defend when the opposition has the ball.

This while the West Africans remain highly organised at the back — despite the odd technical lapse — and defend with two lines of four behind the ball almost all the time.

Ghana are organised and compact when not in possession; this allows them the opportunity to be more spontaneous and creative when they do have the ball.

Space — how much you have, and how much you allow your opponents to have, and in which parts of the pitch — is hard currency in international football and among the African teams at this World Cup, only Ghana appear to have recognised this.