Afronline – The Voice Of Africa

Yes, soccer gods have given their response. The qualification phase roll call of the Orange Africa Cup of Nations, Angola 2010, closed on November 15, while the South Africa 2010 World Cup edition closed on November 18.

The Africa Cup of Nations is organized every two years by the Confederation of African Football. In July 2009, it took on a new name “Orange Africa Cup of Nations”. Orange signed an eight-year sponsorship agreement with CAF to sponsor all major football competitions organised by the continent’s soccer body. According to this agreement Orange will title sponsor CAF’s flagship competition, the Africa Cup of Nations, for television and mobile rights in France for CAF competitions, and will broadcast CAF events in all African countries. The phone corporation is already sponsoring the national teams of Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Senegal, Guinea and Botswana.

The Egypt Pharaohs are the defending champions and overall record winners, having won six times.

The most unexpected guests of this event are Malawi and Togo.

Emmanuel Sobilika has expressed his satisfaction for his national team – the Flames‘ – qualification, for CAN’s final phase on the blog malawidigest.blogspot.com: “Although the Flames were this afternoon beaten by Burkina Faso 1-0 away in Ouagadougou, what matters more is that the Flames will be among the 16 top football nations that will battle it out in Angola next year.”

Jean-Paul TCHAA wrote on the website of how the Togolese team obtained qualification against Gabon:“The Hawks of Togo pleased Togolese people, Saturday, November 14 afternoon in qualifying, with the manner to the CAN, Angola 2010.”.

The greatest surprise came from the drop out of Morocco. Since 1996, it is the first time that the Atlas Lions could not make it through. They were eliminated by the Cameroon Indomitable Lions of Samuel Eto’o, losing their last chance, at home last November 14. According to maroc-football.com, the Moroccan football team has ended the worst year of its soccer history.

The disappointment of the blogosphere is very strong with bloggers trying to find an explanation or a solution. Karim.O comments in a post on the website mountakhab.net:

“The fate is sealed, the Moroccans will simply follow the next African Cup of Nations on the small screen while their counterparts in Cameroon will take part in the 2010 Nations Cup and World Cup 2010, set respectively in Angola (January) and in South Africa (June).”

This year, the qualifications for the CAN coincided with those for the last phase of the World Cup, in South Africa. The African region will be represented by: Algeria, Cameroun, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa (host country). In South Africa, celebrations broke out on Biccard street in Johannesburg’s central business district of Braamfontein.

On Wednesday, November 18 2009, Algeria couldn’t get over being beaten by Egypt in Khartoum. The match was so tense that Nilewise.blogpost.com, an Egyptian blogger quoted by Global Voices online, wrote: ” The football match between Egypt and Algeria has been transformed into a declaration of war between the two countries. It’s just a football match regardless of its importance to the two teams, especially that we all know that Egypt hasn’t qualified for the World Cup for the previous 20 years, and Algeria hasn’t qualified for the past 24 years”.

Once again, West African countries show that they are dominating the soccer scene on this continent. In fact, in both Angola 2010 and the World Cup, South Africa 2010, not less than half of the qualified countries are from the ECOWAS area.

In Africa like in other parts of the world, the success of national teams in sport has brought a sense of solidarity and common belonging. It helps to fight against tribalism and other obstacles on the road to the building of strong nations.

The Official Draw for the final phase of the tournament was held on Friday, November 20, at the International Conference Centre in Talatona, Luanda. Now as the composition of the groups for this final stage is known, speculation is growing all over the African blogosphere.

By Abdoulaye Bah – Afronline