Therefore it can be recommended also to read the document Football 2001 - Visions: Golden Eagles - Will there be an African World Champion soon?. 
It was written before the second stage of the qualification (1996) and you will find a more detailed look at   
-Europe's and in particular Germanys view on African football  
-The progress Africa has made in the last three decades. Some points   
-What are the problems of today. Is Africa on the way up or on the way down?  
-plus a preview made before the qualification  
 

They all trusted into European coaching: Henri Michel (France) at Morocco, Henry Kasperczak (France/Poland) at Tunisia, Philippe Troussier (France) at South Africa, Claude Le Roy (France) at Cameroon, and Bora Milutinovic (Yugoslavia) at Nigeria. 

This point of course is immediately conspicious. (Another fact is that even South Africa and Nigeria hired coaches that were non-native English speakers). 

Since a long time European coaches more than experienced players guide the National teams and educated local coaches. In some phases this had been ctiticised, as the coaches imposed their national styles (English, French) onto the game of the former colonies. Today Frenchman Troussier insisted after his success with Burkina Faso at the African Cup Of Nations (3rd place) of having found an ideal blend of African and European elements. It cannot be denied at all that the passing of knowledge by European coaches has helped the African game to the level it is on today. 

But what does continous European coaching mean to the future of the African game? And did it help Africa 1998? 

European influence

 Who could say advice of experienced men was not worth to listen to it? And who could say that a World Cup is not a very special and critical adventure that is not better guided by men with tournament experiences? 

 But the situation has been different at the five starters: 

The question of continuity 

 Has the coach been hired just for the World Cup or has it been a continous build-up? 
 The North-Africans imposed a visionary build-up on their National sides: Morocco and Tunisia have been working with their coaches for a long period. They have had influence on infrastructural questions as well. 
 Nigeria, Cameroon, and South Africa did have an inconsistent policy in the coaching question. Not only different coaches but also the fact that those coaches had different pilosophies about the game have made a long term team development impossible. 

European influence: 

How many players play in European clubs already and receive the Eurpean education about the game as well as their coherence with the National teams suffers from the travelling problem? 

Tunisia 4 of 22 only 
Morocco 15 of 22 (of those 15 the biggest group (8) play at Spain or Portugal) 
South Africa 15 of 22 (of those 15 the biggest group (4) play in Turkey and one player was only born in South Africa and thus is more European anyway) 
Cameroon (about)16 of 22 (of those 15 the biggest group (7) play at France, at least 2 should be grown up in France but in the special situation as children of immigrants) 
Nigeria 20 of 22 (distributed all over Europe) 
 

 Other reasons have taken impact away from the improvement of the individual players as well. The 'Europeanisation' of the African game has had the effect African teams cannot show unfamiliar faces to European teams anymore. Only Nigeria was able to win and lose matches by the approach to the game, by the different concept. 
 Orthodox strategies, when the coaches did not want to lose the matches by their decisions, were common property of the game of nearly all outsiders.  
 South Africa, Cameroon, and Nigeria lacked of consistency in build-up for this tournament. Nigerias glamour and failure were inherit in their approach to the game. More about this later. 
 No team underestimated an African team anymore. England had extra test-matches to prepare for the critical encounter with Tunisia and their attitude prevented them from getting surprised while Morocco proved again North Africans do quite well against the British style. 
 Not at last bad luck (Cameroon, Morocco) prevented teams that looked like potential surprise candidates from getting the chance of a fourth match, which then would have been a tough test anyway (Brazil/Italy).  

what is the identity of the African game

 Of course, once successful, they will end up in Europe soon, where more money is payed in third and fourth divisions as at home in first. Then new problems emerge. Consistency is almost impossible. Travelling home for single matches, one, two tired training sessions, matches on worse pitches under conditions that are far from what used to at Europe, some holiday feeling being home, new concepts about the game in the heads of players who feel like knowing more now about the game than the home based players, coaches, and authorities. Instead of a unit you have 11 better educated but worse cooperating individuals again. 
 It becomes evident, it is impossible to build up a team consisting of home-based players alone as you will have to create another new one the following month. 
 

  No question, Africas way up will continue. But the political and economical situation will slow down the process. It will be a long way before Africa might be able to establish professional football that can keep players at home and thus Africas football identity will be under the influence of expatriage for a long time more. One has to exploit the good sides. 

 Now to the teams. 

Morocco & Co - The five teams

 Before the World Cup The Shot That Passed Right Through The Net prognosted for Morocco similar impact problems like for Tunisia. And for some 30 minutes it looked just like that, despite a sophisticated style, Morocco would have difficulties to score. But then the attacking game exploded and Morocco scored five brilliant goals in three matches. They sensed the weaknesses of the Norwegian game and just did not win the exciting match because of the vulnurability towards the Norwegian cross balls (2:2).  
 The question has to be put up whether this was not a deficit of preperation. A special coach for the goal keeper should have prepared him better when two British style opponents (Norway, Scotland) were waiting to be played against. But maybe it was the case, it is not known.  
 

Cameroon in group B

 Cameroon felt deprived of the second round by refereeing. Especially the second of the two refused goals in the last match against Chile triggered bad sentiments and even led to attacks against foreigners inside Cameroon. Also the second red card against the team in that match, the third expulsion of the tournament for a Cameroon player, was questionable.  
 It was bad luck that the strong fighting lions, led by Omam-Byick, did not reach the second round. They had conceded a goal against Austria in the final minute, what had cost them 2 points, and they had played a tough match against Italy, whom they challenged with 10 men against 11, and the match had been suspense for a long time before it was decided.  
   The team started carefully and improved during the tournament. Or you might argue: they started too carefully into the matches. Against Austria the plan seemed to work but the lead was only by one goal, against Italy it was like 'waiting for the 0:1' before Cameroon started to attack.  
 Due to statistics from france98.com Cameroon had around 50% ball possession in all matches. But only 41% of the time they possessed the ball, they had been in the attacking zone against Austria. Againnst Italy it had been 45% and finally against Chile 51%. Too late? It made an average value of 46,0%, usually a sign for attacking with only few players and losing the ball quickly again. It had been the 8th worst of all teams of the first round after the ranking of L'equipe sports magazine. Another symptom of lacking attacking power or risk is a goal average of 0.667 (2 goals in three matches). 
 

South Africa

 South Africa once had been the darlings of the European press, after impressive home matches against the world big and winning the African Cup Of Nations 1996 at home. But from then on they were on the way down. Their blend of African and European elements based strongly on the particular team that became old and especially away from home had no impact.  
 After a disappointing Intercontinental Cup, coach Clive Barker was fired and Jomo Sono took over and travelled with a completely changed team to the African Cup Of Nations at Burkina Faso 1998 where they finsished surprise second. After the tournament Phillippe Troussier, 'le sorcier blanc', was hired as new coach. Troussier, famous in West Africa for his transformation of teams to almost invincible squads had coached Burkina Faso to a surprise third place in the tournament. 
 But South Africa is not Burkina Faso. Troussier, who is french native speaker, already had had problems with players and press when coaching the Orlando Pirates once before. He now had to overcome the suspicion of the South Africans, there comes another white European to tell us. He had to deal with a very powerful and critical press and had to deal with players that did not receive him as the messias but considered themselves as stars. He had to deal with a lot of people that did not listen easily but each had an own opinion or concept about the game. 
  After the three matches at France he said something like he felt like a policeman trying to run a holiday camp. He seemed to have missed a seriosity of the players. 
 It is too difficult to judge from outside whether there was a problem and what it was. There is the possibility of a conflict that indeed concerns the question of approach towards the game. It is a problem to be met again when looking at the Nigerain campaign. 
 

Unfortunately South Africa will not be remembered by too many, as the fourth best African team at France. 
The result: 2 ties, 1 loss 
Best player (after L'equipe): #7 Quinton Fortune (5.83 points average)  

Nigeria

best information sources on Internet about the SuperEagles: the brilliant Super Eagles page from Sweden and this Super Eagles page for the World Cup 

 Inconsistency had been a key word for the Nigerian Super Eagles. Often their ban from the Nations Cup had been mentioned when it had come to the reasons for the Nigerian problems. But it had also been the inconsistency in the associations decisions about coaching. 
 When winning the Olympics, the basis had been there: the team, the system, and probably the coach, too. After that they had gone with two different coaches through their 6 qualification matches (without playing any other serious internationals) and although been qualified very early, had wasted more time before they finally had appointed another successor.  
 With Bora Milutinovic, experienced from three World Cups with three different teams and mentalities, the mission impossible, winning the Cup, was tackled. 

 The Nigerian performance then appears to be paradicmatical for the discussion suggested in the introduction of this document: will Africa adapt the European way to look at the game completely because it promises to deliver the better result and will it find a promising own interpretation like Brazil? Or will Africa find or prevent an own concept/idea about football, even if this might become labelled as too vulnerable, and develop a way to win anyway? 
 

1) the (klischee) 'European' view: 

 Nigeria deserved to lose against Danmark. They went into the match complacant and the match against Brazil in their heads. Studying the Danmark-South Africa match they should have known, Danmark would go for a blitz start. Even after the first Danish goal they looked like there were thinking 'Oh, how funny, this just makes it more interesting for the audience, we are used to overcome those situations, it won't be difficult against those Danes'. After the second goal it suddenly looked like they had understood. But it was too late. 
 Individual vanities seemed to have been more important than discipline. Milutinovic had no chance to imply his concepts, the players just seem to refuse to listen. Thus he made too many compromises. Already in the Bulgaria match Nigeria had begged for a 1:1 but the Bulgarians had refused. There had been attacks in which the Bulgarians had outnumbered the Nigerians 6:3 and 7:4 around the penalty box in the final 5 minutes! Attackers only needed to pass back to the 16m line but they didn't. 
 Considering the lucky punches against Spain it can be said that Nigeria was lucky to reach the second round at all. 
 As long as the Nigerians lack the reuired discipline, it is logical they cannot get far in play-offs.  

Nigeria (2)

2) the (klischee) 'African' view: 

 The European football is boring. Nigeria brings joy and desperation, enthusiasm and emotions into the hearts of the fans. Football is more than just staring at the scoreboard and reading the result. Even if two well disciplined teams play each other, only one will win. Nigerians are able to create excitement and do not have a defence like Paraguay anyway. They play what they are strong at. The ability of playing such creative and the problems that arise from the characters required for this style, are two sides of the same medal. Total discipline would distroy the ability to play exciting.  
 Milutinovic's original attitude led to the devostating test match results. And it would have brought probably results like 1:1 against Spain and 0:0 against Bulgaria and Paraguay. How much better is this? A creative team is always critisized more harshly because it will show more fluctuations in the performance. Too often people consider the best match as the 'normal' level the team plays on, but the bad day, where creativity does not work, belongs to the entire performance and cannot get disconnected. Creativity cannot be forced, it is a matter of inspiration. Otherwise it was just work and not creativity. 
 Nigeria will gain experience and come back with more penetration. 
 

 So far the attempt to display those two ideas about Nigerian football from outside and that are reflected inside the team as well. Nigerian football is not a simple thing. Nigeria consists of 400 different peoples and among them some big ones. The players are big stars in European clubs and all have underwent a different education. Inconstancy in coaching caused some of those problems the cooperation Milutinovic-Nigeria suffered from. With making compromises he achieved more than Troussier with the South African team. The questions is, is it right to hire a coach the players would not listen to and then blame the players for not listening? Or won't they listen to anybody?  
 Nigerias problem as well is the consequence of administative problems of the recent past. The actual players are overwhelmingly from the same generation. The youth and junior programs have declined, they have not been seen anymore on international level (U17 / U20). Although it is not seen to often that a good U17/U20 performance really leads to the success of the same players as a national team anyway. Maybe the upcoming U20-World Championship at Nigeria will bring a change. If the country does not move towards even bigger political problems. 
 The 1:4 has been a shock against the best Nigerian weapon: confidence. Some might call it over-confidence, but the most other outsiders at France 98 seemed to have been just too shy to reach anything. 
The result: 2 wins, 2 losses, goals in all mtatches, good ball possession and attacking percentage results 
Best player (after L'equipe): #10 Jay Jay Okocha (midfield, 6.67 points average), with this value among the top 10 players of the 16 play-off teams 
 
Tunisia

 Because of the disappointing Nations Cup appearance Tunisia had long been considered as the weakest African contender. They seemed to lack impact and good replacement players. But Adel Sellimi had returned to the teams and had added some danger potential. 
 At France they played unlucky. Like all outsiders they played a comnservative game. Concentrated English players, in absence of the big heat, and the timid approach let Tunisia fall behind against England. Inaccurate shooting, especially by Beya, spoiled the chance to equalise, before Scholes decided the match for England. Another unlucky match against Colombia saw them lose late 0:1 and showed again the problem: not much attacking impact. In the last match at least Tunisia scored a goal. An average of 41,5 % of their ball possession, the 4th worst value of the first round, Tunisia spend in the attacking zone. And this even looks better than it is: it had been 38% against England and 32% against Romania. The 53% against Colombia resulted also from the fact that Tunisia in this match had only 40% possession of the ball anyway. Shy, shy. 
 

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