by Given Morocco’s performance in the last World Cup, do you think an African nation will win the tournament in the next decade? Chinese
Honestly no. The World Cup is a bit of a strange tournament in that it has virtually never had a surprise winner – perhaps West Germany in 1954 – but their subsequent performances have lessened the surprise felt at the time. Perhaps all that means is that we’re in for a shock, but there seems to be something about the magnitude of the occasion in the closing stages of the competition that ultimately benefits the elite.
There is also a sense that Western Europe has effectively industrialized youth production, with players who have been very well trained in academies from a young age being pushed into ultra-high level competitions where the best develop quickly. Even for teams like Brazil and Argentina to keep up is very difficult and it is significant that 15 of Morocco’s World Cup team came from European academies.
If we add to that the lack of resources, the chaos and corruption that continue to plague many African teams and the fact that, despite the emergence of figures such as Walid Regragui, Aliou Cissé and Djamel Belmadi, the majority of teams Africans continue to appoint coaches. from abroad and have little sense of developing their own coaching schools, and it is very difficult to see African teams challenging regularly, certainly not in the short term.
Gone is the sense of progress and hope that existed from Algeria’s victory over West Germany in 1982 to Senegal’s quarter-finals in 2002, a period that spanned Cameroon’s quarter-finals in 1990 and Nigeria’s and Cameroon’s victories in the Olympic Games. . Ghana in 2010, kept away from the semi-final only by a handball from Luis Suárez, always seemed a bit strange: it would have been the sixth of the six African teams eliminated in the group stage of the World Cup in South Africa if Serbia had received a clear penalty. for handball against Australia and converted it, but perhaps Morocco’s performance in Qatar can herald the beginning of a new era of progress.
What’s the strangest rule in football that you still can’t accept? I still don’t understand why the ball has to be still when taking a foul. Richard
He has to be still just right to make it clear that a phase of the game has stopped and the shot has been taken; I’m not against that. It is a testament to how good the laws of football were when they were first drawn up in 1863 and how little they had to be changed, at least until VAR meant we had to try to find wording that would cover all eventualities. This has given rise to a handball law that seems absurd to me; It would liberalize it greatly so that a player would have to try to cheat to be penalized.
I hate that matches (for example, the 2018 World Cup final) can be affected by penalties imposed for essentially random events. Offside seems to be improving, but I would make the interpretation of interference a little stricter, so that a striker whose position forces a defender to try to clear the ball is always considered offside (goals when a player misses a clearance header, for example, with the ball). attacking a player who would have been offside if the defender had not fully reached the ball) seem fundamentally unfair.
But those are adjustments to laws whose wording has recently been modified. I think the strangest thing in football is the throw-in. I’m not suggesting that players should be allowed to throw the ball downfield with one hand, which is what led to the current law being adopted in 1883, but I would be in favor of allowing a player to simply drop the ball. to a teammate, or maybe even to himself.
Are you for or against maintaining the VAR? Chekwube
I would be in favor of going back to the drawing board and doing what the football authorities should have done in the first place, which is to have a huge consultation process involving players, coaches, referees, journalists and fans.
Try different variants in smaller leagues and see what works and what doesn’t, and how you can improve. Develop a proposal, circulate it, encourage feedback, test the revised version, and only then impose it on the game at large. But consultations seem out of fashion nowadays, not only in football but in general; Everything in Gianni Infantino’s FIFA is presented as fait accompli.
Which title contender is most in need of an upgrade in the January transfer window? Drawing
It is clear that Arsenal need a goalscoring centre-forward, who can not only change games, but also allow Gabriel Jesus to occasionally play on the flanks and relieve some of the pressure on Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli, who look exhausted. Liverpool, due to injuries to Andy Robertson and Konstantinos Tsimikas, could probably do with a left-back at least in the short term, and perhaps a central defender as well. Manchester City doesn’t have such an obvious gap, but Ilkay Gündogan has been missed this season.
In this day
Kevin Keegan’s impact on Newcastle as a manager was extraordinary. He had retired as a player in 1984 after inspiring Newcastle and left the St James’s pitch in a helicopter. His return in Newcastle’s time of need, as they faced relegation to the third division in 1992, seemed legendary. They survived, were promoted the following season and finished third in their first season in the Premiership, playing open, attacking and exciting football. They dropped to sixth place the following season, but by 1995-96 they had built a 12-point lead at the top of the table.
However, slowly his form began to falter as Manchester United embarked on a relentless chase. An extraordinary 4-3 draw at Liverpool in early April seemed the turning point and Manchester United secured the title on the final day.
That summer, after Keegan apparently offered to resign, Newcastle broke the world transfer record by signing Alan Shearer for £15 million. Newcastle beat Manchester United 5-0 in October but continued a run of one win in nine league games. When they lost at Blackburn on Boxing Day he again offered to resign but followed up with a 7-1 win over Tottenham and a 3-0 win over Leeds.
However, on 8 January 1997, Keegan resigned to widespread surprise, saying he had taken the club as far as he could.
