By the time the last matches in the World Cup and African Cup of Nations (Afcon) qualifiers were played, it was clear the winds of changes were sweeping all over the continent.
Nigeria, Cameroon, South Africa and Senegal, the African powerhouses, all missed out on Germany 2006.
In their place, Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo are to parade their talents at the biggest single sports competition. Tunisia beat Morocco, another African country that has tasted the world stage, for the fifth and final place allocated for Africa’s 53 nations.
All of this brings us to why the 2006 edition of Afcon, that starts in Egypt on Friday, is probably the most difficult to predict in years.
Nigeria and Ghana meet on Monday in what ought to be the tie of the round. The fixture pits the two West African nations at a time when Ghana are on the rise while Nigeria need to perform well at Afcon to confound critics already predicting that their time as a continental superpower is over.
Ghana, on the other hand, must prove that their trip to Germany is no fluke. And that is the theme. Flukes, flashes in the pan, one-hit wonders versus the pedigreed, the aristocrats, the traditional superpowers.
Cameroon and Angola meet on Saturday in another tie that pits the old and the new, while Bafana Bafana open their account against Guinea on Sunday.