Hopes for Africa teams in world cup 2022 The 2022 FIFA World Cup will be held for the 22nd time, featuring the quadrennial international foo...

Hopes for Africa teams in world cup 2022

The 2022 FIFA World Cup will be held for the 22nd time, featuring the quadrennial international football championship contested by the top national teams of FIFA's member associations.

The World Cup, which has great enthusiasm in football, begins to be held from November 20 to December 18, 2022 in Qatar.

And like any other continent, Africa is represented by Cameroon, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia.

And in order to highlight the hopes of African teams for the World Cup, I have spoken to Daniel Mlimuka, a sports analyst who has started by highlighting the challenges faced by African teams in the tournament.

"Many times African teams face a challenge that has existed for a long time, they do not get the same benefits in these competitions compared to teams from European and South American countries."

Mr. Mlimuka says that this is probably due to not having the most talented players compared to other players from different areas.

There are some teams with good players, for example, Senegal, has many players in Europe but when you come to Africa there is a challenge to unite those talented players and get better results.

And this has become a challenge for the whole of Africa, to unite the players who play in European clubs, to bring them all together and get a strong team. Daniel Mlimuka added that:

"There is a team like Cameroon that had many players with great experience in World Cup competitions. The problem is that there are not many star players compared to the era of Roger Milla who had the ability to produce good results. For Egypt, if you look at their strength, it is still in Mohamed Salah, unlike the Egyptian national team of the past years.

What is the influence of African teams in the World Cup?

Our analyst says that for him, the most influential team in Africa that qualified first is Morocco.

"First of all, their team has distinguished itself, and also this nation has been able to use stars who are at the international level such as Achraf Hakimi, Hakim Ziyech and Noussair Mazraoui compared to other African teams."

According to Mlimuka, the Moroccan team is the one that shows hope for Africa, followed by Senegal, and the others that have even reached the semi-finals, he sees it as something that will surprise many.''

It should be noted that the Moroccan team is together with Belgium, Canada and Croatia.

In Africa, the Senegalese team that defeated Egypt in the finals of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON), has shown that it is strong, the fact is that it has not yet proven itself as a threat to international teams. Our analyst says Daniel Mlimuka:

"The context of the African Cup of Nations (AFCON) is completely different from the World Cup. Are the talents that exist right now convincing to give hope that we will succeed, that is my fear if I start to highlight this issue from that point of view".

Another team entering to represent Africa is from Ghana, the Black Stars, which also has a lot to learn in the World Cup. First of all they meet Uruguay.

The last time the two met, Ghana were defeated 4-2 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

Undoubtedly, each of them will be careful with each other and want to measure if perhaps the method of the game has changed.

But don't forget that the Ghanaian team that participated in 2010 has completely changed. Famous players like Asamoah Gyan and Andre 'Dede' Ayew are absent.

This step will show progress in football in Ghana but our analyst sees that the previous team had better experience than the current one.

Grouping of teams

Analyst Daniel Mlimuka's view is that there are no easy or difficult groups. There is a lot that has happened in football in the past.

Perhaps the fans felt that their team was in an easy group but at the end of the day, the teams that looked like rocks were eliminated and the ones that looked easy remained.

"The goal of any team is to win their matches." This is the same as saying that no team in the group is easy to win because everyone is fighting to emerge victorious.

And perhaps for the groups in which African teams are present, their fellow teams may assume that those are the ones that they will be able to release easily.

But now what is the most difficult task for African teams?

"The most difficult thing is to classify the strategy and tactics of the players," said Mlimuka and added, "either Spanish football is known, Brazilian football is known, British football is known... But there is no philosophy of African football that is understood."

Perhaps this is due to the fact that when African talents start to emerge, they flee to Europe and others remain there.

Therefore, the issue of bringing together the best players is still coming up again.

But the secret is probably where at least come the day, one African team has won its previous championship and entered the final.

''Perhaps we should start from the bottom to develop our talents. Maybe start investing in soccer. Because Europe and some teams are registering a nine-year-old. But Africa has not seen such an action can be done.

"Also, another thing that can be done is to focus a lot of energy on young people starting from a very young age so that they don't have the desire to go to Europe, and to develop them so that we can get our football philosophy. This will be fundamental.”

It is not to stop them from going to Europe, no, but to gather our talents that we have in Africa and develop them on an understandable basis.

If you look at the Under-17 teams you expect to see in the senior teams in the future, most of them are lost in the middle.

The time has come for us to have a link between Under-17 football and that of seniors like in Europe and good talent development systems.

For example, many Nigerian national team players either went to France at a young age or were born in France. Now how are these local talents developed?

Is there a time when an African team can win the World Cup?

It remains a hope because history shows that the teams that win the World Cup are of high quality.

 "They don't have to be teams that have invested a lot of money. There are teams from South America like Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil that have been doing well in the World Cup, without having too many money players but only because those countries produce talented players.

"Therefore, the day we see African players going to dominate World football, that will be a big sign that there may be a day when Africa will win the World Cup, but for now I don't see if that can happen." Mr. Mlimuka has said.

Even if you follow it closely, there has been one incident of African teams reaching the top stage of the tournament.

"There was Ghana, they came close, but they too were not reliable."

But as is known in football, anything can happen.

And it should also be understood that it is not about having many players playing soccer internationally, no, but it is the level of the game played by the players.

If you look at many teams that have won the World Cup, they have had some of the best players. France, Aurgentina, Brazil, Germany, have been preparing players who provide great competition in soccer at high levels. And if there is a day in Africa when we will get there, that is the day when Africa will have a chance to win the World Cup," said Mlimuka.

For example, when the Spanish national team won the World Cup in 2010, it had star players in almost the entire squad.

When Germany took the World Cup in 2014, the team had some of the best players in the world. This is different from Africa where you will find one or two players playing at the world level.

For example, if you go to Senegal, you can find Sadio Mane, in Egypt you can find Mo Salah, but not the whole squad.

This means that so far, in this regard, Africa still has a long way to go to fulfill the dream that has become the desire of many football fans on the continent.