Quote:
Originally Posted by dippin
In Africa, there is the mild surprise of Cameroon and Nigeria doing poorly, but this time around there doesnt seem to be a team likely of advancing deeply into the world cup, like Nigeria, Cameroon or Senegal.
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Qualifying in Africa is tough and unpredictable. 52 unions with only 5 berths available. You are up against not only the quality of the opposing team, but also all sorts of off-field obstacles and tactics, including geography: no other federation has such a wide variety of climatic conditions, with as much travel involved. You can literally draw Ghana, Ethiopia, Egypt and South Africa, which makes for arduous travelling.
Cameroon and Nigeria, in the past built their qualification on winning at home and mitigating damage away. When you're in a tough group though, it makes for a risky tactic. Nigeria's best team was in 2002, and even then they went out in the first round, and also didn't qualify for the 2006 world cup. So your suprise at them doing poorly is based on reputation more than results, i wager.
In any case, I've rated Ivory Coast and Ghana as the most consistent African teams for the last couple of years. They play well anywhere on the continent.