I'm looking at cameroon-croatia, which is one nil to croatia right now and cameroon just had a man sent off. Cameroon were also in my mind not too impressive against Mexico. Algeria have often proven themselves as a strong team defensively, but this offense has only 1 goal in 4 world cup games of their current era. certainly ivory coast were impressive, ghana looked strong in a narrow loss and nigeria....well they didn't lose but I look back on the 'playoff' system it implemented for it's final round Maybe I'm bias because they had an american coach, but I really had myself believing they were going to be bringing something to say at this world cup. but their qualification route required a head to head showdown against ghana. Then there's Zambia, who won the african cup of nations over ghana in 2012, but could not advance as it would have required them to top a group over ghana. Why doesn't CAF implement a system more similar to CONCACAF/AFC: final group stage of say 2 groups of 6
Because of the Africa Nations Cup is held every two years, rather than every four years, as is the case for most other confederational championships. This reduces the number of match days available....
And even though CONCACAF also has the Gold Cup every two years, most CONCACAF nations just have a short qualifying tournament for it (3 nations don't even need to qualify).
in 2014, algeria is defintly one of the most solid african nations... If i had to rank the african nations : 1- CIV/ Ghana 3-Nigeria/Algeria 5- Senegal 6- Egypt/cameroon/mali/burkina faso/zambia 11- RDC/Cap verde/tunisia/Togo/Gabon teams that use to be strong in the past, and could improve : morocco, angola, south africa
I'd add that I don't think it really matters, since Africa, at least right now, is pretty weak overall as a confederation. Just look at their performances at the past three World Cups....only one nation in the knockout rounds each time...
CAF have only 5 spots. it's normal that it have few teams which advance... it is not the good way to estimate the strenght of a confederation. the good way is to look how much is the average points earned per team in group stages. you want look history. ok. i did you a little sheet. (i didnt count this world cup because it is not finished yet.) => During the 4 last world cup, the Caf nations earn an average of 2.67 points, while asian/ocean nations had 2.59 and concacaf earn 3, south america 5.35 and europe 4.77. points : - Caf is not "ridiculous" or "amazingly weak" comparativly to confederations like concacaf of AFC/Oceania. - If you remove the top nations of commenbol (brasil and argentina) and of europe (germany, spain, italy, netherlands, england), their average will plummet - some nations of concacaf (mexico and USA) and AFC (japan and korea) which are serious teams right now, use to have very bad results. But when they easy qualify to each world cup, they improve. In africa, it is difficult to qualify every time. The only Caf team that played the all world cups since 1998 are cameroon and nigeria. Nigeria is considerate as a serious team. and cameroon have problems of federation etc...
Well Cameroon did not even qualify legitimately. They were awarded 3 points for a 2-0 loss to Togo, because the Togolese fielded an ineligable player. Either way I would say that Nigeria, CIV, and Ghana are the undisputed top 3 sides in CAF. There is no argument there. Algeria, Cameroon, Senegal, Egypt, Burkina Faso, Zambia would be the next level of sides. Honestly Cameroon is much better than what they showed. They always screw themselves by fighting over bonuses rather than preparing for the competition. Then a stupid red card and they just crumble. Either way I would say Senegal and, Algeria, and egypt are definately better . Possibly Burkina Faso and Zambia as well but it's hard to tell. Cameroon has not even qualified for the past 2 ANC competitions.
I watched all the final round qualifiers from Africa. The teams that lost at that last stage were not impressive. Burkina Faso is the only team that maybe could of been interesting. Maybe Senegal ... they had bad luck that they had to play their home game in Morocco.
Depends on your time frame....take out 1998, and the picture is very different. CONMEBOL = 5.4 UEFA = 4.7 CONCACAF = 3.1 Asia = 3.0 Africa = 2.6 And those numbers are despite the fact that Africa hosted in 2010, and Asia in 2002...take out the performances of the host nations in those cases, and the numbers for Africa and Asia get worse....
it's the same old story of "just not quite good enough" with africa, it seems. the best teams probably did qualify, save for maybe cameroon. it doesn't even matter...you could replace egypt with cameroon, or senegal for algeria...and my feelings are, it'd be more of the same. the problem really isn't the system. besides...in africa, there are no easy games. even qualifying for the world cup is an accomplishment. there are teams across the map that have potential. i'm shocked at how bad africa is doing this world cup. there's still time...but it's not looking good, not at all..