• Introduction:

African coaches vs. European or South American experts - complicated situations in African nations consisting of various ethnic groups are one important reason to rely on a 'neutral' outsider
• Facts:

Almost half of the Nations Cup winning coaches have been Africans, third have been East Europeans.
Those have vanished but the Nations Cup 2000 will unlikely be won by an African coach: most big teams arrive with a West European in charge

 A big topic in African football is the question of coaching of national teams. The question whether to put faith in a local coach or to hire a foreign 'expert'.  
 Historically seen, coaches from Europe or South America had had an edge in knowledge of modern training methods and football ideologies. This did not necessarily mean, the application on African teams was always the best way.  
  
 But another point plays a big role in the decisions: African nations consist of differents ethnics with different backgrounds and even different languages. So a coach alway stems from one group and this often becomes a problem even if only interpreted into it from outside. A foreign coach is something like neutral and usually has some authority advantage in the beginning of his term. 
 Today the situation has become more complicated: successful foreign coaches often have no big names, and big names might find it hard to cope with the different circumstanzes. The foreign coaches actually working often have even different methods. But many players arrive from Europe from big clubs with prominent football teachers. Sometimes they even do not accept coaching philosophies in the National team when the coach is a foreigner.  

Facts 

 At the Nations Cup foreign coaches have not been as successful as you might think: 10 of 21 Nations Cup winners achieved the goal without the help of coaches from other continents. Of the other eleven, one coach had been from Brazil and 10 from Europe. Those 10 include 7 (until 1984) stemming from the then communist East European states. Only after 1984 3 West European coaches from Wales, France and Netherlands have won the Cup. 
 Ghana has won all their four titles with coaches from home. Now they are trying different, but now they also have a majority of European based players. 

The coaching situation at the Nations Cup 1998: 

African coaches	Non-African coaches
Group A
Côte d'Ivoire (Martin Tia Gbonké)	Ghana (Giuseppe Dossena, Italy)  Cameroon (Pierre Lechantre, France)  Togo (Gottlieb Göller, Germany)
Group B
South Africa (Trott Moloto)  Algeria (Nasser Sandjak)  DR Congo (Basilua Lusadisu Médard)	Gabon (Antonio Dumas, Brazil)
Group C
Zambia (Ben Bamfuchile)	Egypt (Gerard Gili, France)  Burkina Faso (René Taelman (Belgium)  Peter Schnitger (Germany)
Group D
Congo (David Memy)	Nigeria (Jo Benfrere, Netherlands)  Tunisia (Francesco Scolgio, Italy)  Morocco (Henri Michel, France)

It would be only logical the winning coach would be an European: Not only do they outnumber domestic coaches, all favorites apart from South Africa are coached by Europeans. 
Conspicious also: The once successful Eastern European coaches have disappeared completely. Italy, relatively meaningless as colonial power, has started to have some impact now.