Morocco. Tunisia and the AFCON illusion

 

 

 

Anyone using the African Cup of Nations as a yardstick by which to guage the strength of an African nation in football may well be making a mistake.

An analysis of African football brings forth the interesting fact that at least 2 of the strongest African nations take the African World Cup Qualifiers at least a bit more seriously than they take the Nation's Cup. 

The essence of the point being made above is not in its universality. It is certainly not applicable to all African soccer playing countries. It surely does not apply to the Pharaohs of Egypt, perhaps the only one of Africa's leading soccer nations that can be accused of taking the AFCON more seriously than World Cup qualification. Egypt have won the Nation's Cup a record 7 times, part of which was the amazing 3 consecutive wins between 2006 and 2010. In comparison, the Pharaohs have only qualified for the World Cup 3 times, or more realistically twice from an authentic African qualifying process.

Neither does the argument apply to the Indomitable Lions of Cameroun, who besides qualifying for an unprecedented 8 World Cup tournaments (an African Record), have also been very dominant in the African Cup of Nations since they first won it in 1984. (having won it an impressive 4 times since then)

But it certainly does apply to the Carthage Eagles, the soccer national team of Tunisia, who despite qualifying for 6 World Cup tournaments, the current one inclusive, have won the African Cup of Nations just ONCE in their history, which happens to be when they were hosts in 2004. Despite holding the record for consecutive qualifications for the Nation's Cup (15), Tunisia have not won an AFCON medal since they won that tournament in 2004, yet, in comparison, they have qualified for the World Cup 3 times since then! (2006, 2018 and 2022).

Ultimately, the most glaring example of seeming preference for World Cup qualification over and above excellence at the African Cup of Nations are the Atlas Lions of Morocco, who have been the pleasant surprise team mainly to the delight of Africans, Arabs and Moslems at the current 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The Moroccans have surpassed their groundbreaking second round stage achievement of 1986 by again achieving a first in being the first African team in a World Cup last 4, reaching the semi finals of the current ongoing competition, a first for any African or Arab nation. Morocco's Atlas Lions have delivered glory to themselves and their fellow Arabs as a sort of vindication of the first World Cup to be held on Arab soil, succeeding way above the host nation, Qatar and even Saudi Arabia, who initially showed great promise in beating Lionel Messi's Argentina.

It is pertinent to note that this same Moroccan team were unable to go past the quarterfinal of the last African Cup of Nations tournament that was held in Cameroun between January and February this very year. The Moroccans that have not conceded a single normal goal prior to the semi final of the 2022 World Cup despite playing against highly rated teams like Croatia, Belgium, Spain and Portugal had at the AFCON 2021 actually conceded 2 goals to be knocked out in the quarter finals by the same Pharaohs of Egypt that failed to achieve World Cup qualification! This is in keeping with a failure of the Atlas Lions to either win or reach a final of the AFCON in all but just 2 of the 33 editions of the competition to date. Having won the AFCON just once in 1976, it took them another 28 years to reach the final of the same tournament in 2004, losing to Tunisia. Since 2004, Morocco HAVE NOT REACHED an African Cup of Nations semi final.

Regardless of whatever the Moroccan winger Sofiane Boufal said or did not say, by far the greatest indicator as to Morocco's capacity to reach a World Cup semi final (or perhaps even better, incredible as it may seem) was the Atlas Lions amazing record as AN AFRICAN NATION in African World Cup Qualifiers since 2017! A record totally at variance with their performance in what is supposed to be Africa's top soccer tournament. 

Morocco qualified from Group C of the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers, winning 3 matches and drawing 3 without conceding a single goal (by far the best defensive record in the qualifiers) . This impressive defensive record did not extend to the 2017 African Cup of Nations in which Morocco was eliminated in the quarter final after conceding a goal in 3 separate matches. Not a terrible defensive performance but clearly worse than their record in the World Cup qualifiers.

Morocco's performance in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers was even more impressive. They won all of their qualifiers, home and away except the last one which was a second leg draw having beaten the Democratic Republic of Congo in the first leg by 4 goals to 1.

The contrast between Morocco and Tunisia's records in World Cup qualifiers as against their records in the African Cup of Nations shows that there is a tendency for African teams to take the former more seriously than the latter!

The conclusion is that those who run football in Africa, the Confederation of African Football inclusive, must find a way to make the AFCON tournament more prestigious and precious to African national teams so that we would see a higher quality of football in the 2 yearly competition.

Russia World Cup 2018. Attack Finishing Stats by Continent.

Examining the match statistics of teams competing in the current World Cup shows some interesting differences as regards the continents. These differences show why some continents are more likely to produce a World Cup winner than others.

The stats shown in tabular form in this post examine the best 3 teams from Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Concacaf in the 2018 World Cup group stages. The standard this soccer blog uses in determining these teams is points gathered in the group stages, goals difference and group standings.

Teams considered:

Europe
Belgium - 9 Points
Croatia   - 9 Points
France    - 7 Points

South America
Uruguay     - 9 Points
Brazil         - 7 Points
Colombia   - 6 Points

Africa
Senegal  - 4 Points
Nigeria   - 3 Points (-1 GD)
Tunisia    -3 Points (-3 GD)

Asia
Japan  - 4 Points (0 GD, 2nd position)
Iran   - 4 Points (0 GD, 3rd position) )
South Korea   -3 Points (0 GD)

Concacaf*
Mexico
Costa Rica
Panama

* To speak of the best 3 teams in Russia 2018 from this region may seem controversial because it only produced 3 teams altogether for the tournament. But the nature of their qualification format suggests these were certainly the best 3 teams from the Concacaf region!

The finishing stats are derived by dividing the total number of goals scored by each team by the total number of shots achieved by each team in all their 3 groups matches. Shots on target are not considered because it can be a deceptive statistic if the opposing goalkeeper in a match caught all shots on target comfortably!

When we get the goals - to -shots (GTS) ratio for each considered team in a continent (Top 3), we then calculate the average GTS ratio for that continent to reflect that continent's finishing prowess in soccer.

For instance, Belgium's GTS can be acquired from the following stats which are available via the espn website. Image Screenshots follow.

We can see from the espn stats that Belgium had a total of 53 shots in the group stages and scored 9 goals from these shots making a relatively high GTS ratio of 16.98%

The Top 3 GTS Ratio for all the continentwith teams at Russia 2018 is as tabulated below in descending order.

CONTINENT	TOP 3 GOALS TO SHOTS RATIO
Europe	14.42%
South America	13.43%
Africa	11.79%
Asia	10.50%
Concacaf	7.55%

What this clearly shows is that top European teams are significantly ahead of top teams from other continents in the business of converting scoring opportunities, and this may explain why Europe has dominated the World Cup for the last decade or more!

Pele. The Lost Prime Tournaments

Edson Arantes do Nascimento is generally acknowledged to be one of the greatest footballers of all time. Even his haters have not been able to deny this. The biq question is as to whether the complement is complementary enough!


The fact that many analysts ignore when they compare Pele with Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi is that unlike the 2 Argentines, Pele never had the opportunity to play a full major global National Team Tournament while injury free in his prime. As a matter of fact, if one looks at stats that suggest that sportsmen generally reach their prime at Age 26, (refer to attached snapshot from the credible website), then Pele never had even 1 Single World Cup or Copa America Injury Free Prime Performance! At age 21/22, he was injured in his second match of the 62 Mundial and never played again in that tournament as a result. His experience in 1966 in England was even more horrific, he was brutally fouled in each of the 2 matches he played and played the last match while limping. He vowed never to play in the World Cup again as a result. The seeming conspiracy that he suffered from in that World Cup is another subject entirely.


It is quite noteworthy that despite his commanding performances in the 1958 World Cup and the 1959 Copa America, Pele was still a teenager in both tournaments and was still not yet a fully physically mature athlete. As a matter of fact, this writer has a strong opinion that Pele's goal against Mexico in the 1962 World Cup would have been almost impossible for him to score in the 1958 and 1978 World Cups for physical reasons!


The 1970 Pele was not the Prime Pele. He had suffered major injuries in 3 of the years between 1962 and 1965, and then came 1966. It is quite explainable that he never fully recovered either physically or mentally from these injuries. Sports Medicine in the Pele era was definitely not at the level it is today, where most Soccer players can expect to still deliver prime physical performances beyond 30 years of age because of how equipped their doctors are!


Let's look at Maradona, who played all of Argentina's matches at the 1982 and 1986 World Cups when he was between 22 and 26 years of Age, his physical prime. He achieved 6 legitimate goals and 6 assists at most in 12 prime performances. No one, and NO ONE, should consider Maradona's Hand of God goal in assessing his abilities in comparison with others! Pele, on the other hand, had scored 7 goals and 3 assists in just 5 World Cup Matches by the time of his injury in the 62 tournament.


Pele's pre-prime direct goal contribution per match is actually as high as twice that of Maradona's prime performance.

Maradona's 1986 World Cup: Examining the Castrol Index.

Castrol, the British lubricant giant, has developed and publicized a system of ranking the performances of players at the World Cup tournament since 1966.

For the 1986 World Cup, won by Argentina, the ranking was as displayed in the image above.

The index ranks the top performing players according to the Castrol index. It acknowledges the performances of Jean Tigana, Careca and Gary Lineker in that tournament.

The amazing thing is that the index gives recognition to 5 players in the Argentine side as part of the top 10 players in the tournament, comparable to the 5 non Argentine players also recognized.

The index clearly shows that it was not a single handed victory for Maradona. The difference between his castrol score (9.80), and that of Oscar Ruggeri (9.42) is just 0.38. You could not say that Maradona out-performed any player in this list by a significant multiple.

Conclusively, the castrol index indicates a great team performance for Argentina at the 1986 World Cup, not the 1 man performance attributed to Maradona!

Pele vs Maradona, Definitely not Messi

The debate as to who is the greatest soccer player of all time will always be heated because each generation of soccer lovers feels that the best player of their generation deserves to be considered either the best ever or one of the very best ever! Apart from this generational bias, there is also an offensive bias that always puts offensive players above defensive players.

The stats that most of the soccer public pay attention to in assessing players mostly have to do with goals. As a matter of fact, it would seem the most highly rated defenders helped their rating by their goalscoring contributions.

So, soccer is not fair. It takes the modest efforts of independent fans through artiicles like this to address the unfairness!

As at today, the debate as to the greatest player of all time has been generally limited to 3 offensive players:

1. Pele

2. Diego Maradona

3. Lionel Messi

Lionel Messi has been the greatest footballer of the last 8 years.There is at least 1 reason to rate him above Cristiano Ronaldo, however, there is also 1 valid reason why Messi cannot be placed at same level as either Pele or Maradona.

An offensive player's all time rating should be reflected in the goalscoring performances they participated in at THE HIGHEST LEVELS OF COMPETITION wherein great performances or otherwise cannot be ignored! The most challenging stage of the major international competitions, whether for clubsides or national teams, can be assumed to be the medal determinant or final stages: Semi Finals and Finals, with third place matches arguably to be accorded less weight as they do not produce a tournament winner! 

The problem with Messi's career is that in 4 final performances for a strong Argentine National Side, he has not only failed to help his side win even once (poor), he has also failed to record either a goal or assist in any of these crucial or decisive games! (very poor and decisive).The implication is that compared to either Pele or Maradona, Messi has been easy to mark out of crucial games! Performances in Final Matches CANNOT BE IGNORED!