Senegal Joins the World Cup Party
Africa’s challenge for the 2002 World Cup is only a game shy of taking its final shape.
On Saturday, thanks to a 5-0 victory over Namibia, Senegal became the fourth African country to qualify for next year’s 32-nation tournament in Japan and South Korea, joining Cameroon, South Africa and Tunisia.
Next Saturday’s game between Nigeria and Liberia will produce the last of the continent’s five challengers.
Senegal’s surprise qualification--its first ever--came at the expense of Morocco and Egypt, both of whom were ahead of it when the day began.
Morocco could have clinched its place last weekend but was beaten, 1-0, by Senegal in Dakar in its final qualifying game. Its only chance of going to the World Cup was if Senegal and Egypt both failed to win their final matches Saturday.
The Egyptians obliged, giving up a goal 10 minutes from the end of their game against Algeria and being held to a 1-1 tie in Annaba, Algeria.
The Senegalese, however, made short work of weakling Namibia, whose team was described by one Namibian newspaper as the “milking cow” of African soccer after an 8-2 loss to Egypt.
El Hadji Ousseynou Diouf, who had scored the vital goal against Morocco, scored two more Saturday in Windhoek, Namibia, and the 5-0 victory enabled Senegal to leap ahead of Egypt and Morocco, earning its World Cup ticket.
The result brought thousands of fans out onto the streets around Independence Square in the Senegalese capital of Dakar, many of them carrying pictures of the national team.
“I am really very proud of this exceptional victory,” Abdoulaye Wade, the nation’s president, said in a televised address. “I have so much ambition for Senegal to be among the best in Africa.”
Senegal’s first World Cup appearance could make the next Paris-to-Dakar rally an even more significant event, linking the site of the 1998 World Cup final and home of defending world champion France with Africa’s newest World Cup participant.
Nigeria or Liberia?
Nigeria, which reached the second round of the France ’98 World Cup under then-coach Bora Milutinovic, has to win its final qualifying game, against Ghana on Saturday, to reach Korea/Japan ’02.
The Nigerians have not beaten Ghana in 17 years, but have the advantage of playing at home in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt and Coach Amodu Shaibu has said his team is “well-poised to qualify.”
If Nigeria ties or loses, Liberia would qualify for its first World Cup, an outcome that would be fitting reward for years of effort, on and off the field by forward George Weah.
Weah, a former FIFA World Player of the Year, has poured large amount of his money into keeping Liberia’s national team afloat, but briefly quit the team last month after being abused by fans after a home loss to Ghana on July 1.
An angry mob stoned the Liberian team’s bus and Weah’s home after that game, causing him to say he had had enough.
Liberia’s president, Charles Taylor, intervened and talked Weah into returning. He did, scoring a vital goal in a 1-0 road victory over Sierra Leone on July 14 to put Liberia within sight of the World Cup.
Now, only Nigeria can snatch away that dream.
Slave Ship Fracas
Unthinkable as it might be in this day and age, such things as slave ships do exist.
Just ask Jonathan Akpoborie, whose ownership of one such vessel appears ready to sink his playing career. Or at least put a sizable dent in it.
Akpoborie, 32, was suspended indefinitely in May by his German club, VfL Wolfsburg after a ship he owns as part of a family shipping business was suspected of carrying child slaves.
The Nigerian striker acknowledged that his ship, the Etireno, had carried child laborers but insisted he had not been aware of it until after the fact.
“There were actually children on the ship . . . the captain didn’t know about it, and least of all me,” Akpoborie told Stern, a German weekly. He said the children were “probably being taken from Benin to Gabon to work,” but maintained ignorance otherwise.
“If I don’t find a club in Germany as a result of these false allegations, then something is going wrong in this country,” he added
VfL Wolfsburg is trying to rid itself of Akpoborie, whose contract runs through 2003, but recently failed to reach a deal that would have sent him to FC Basel in Switzerland.
The 2001-2002 Bundesliga season starts Saturday.
Hayatou to IOC
Issa Hayatou of Cameroon, president of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) and a man regarded as a likely future candidate for the presidency of FIFA, has been voted in as one of six new members of the International Olympic Committee. Hayatou was in charge of the soccer tournament at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
Beginning Monday, Hayatou will lead a CAF delegation on a four-day inspection tour of stadia in Mali, site of the Jan. 19-Feb. 10 African Nations Cup.
The 16-nation tournament will feature Mali, as host, and Cameroon, as defending champion, as well as Algeria, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Togo, Tunisia and Zambia.
Egyptian Accident
Mohamed El Yamany, a 19-year-old striker who scored one of Egypt’s two goals as it knocked the United States out of the FIFA World Youth Championship in Argentina last month, has been seriously injured in a car crash.
Doctors said Yamany, who led Egypt to third place in the world championship and was his country’s leading goal scorer, was in a coma because of head injuries suffered when his car rolled three times after bursting a tire in an accident near his home in Ismailia.
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Africa’s Representatives
African countries that have qualified for previous World Cups:
Algeria: 1982, 1986
Cameroon: 1982, 1990, 1994, 1998
Egypt: 1934, 1990
Morocco: 1970, 1986, 1994, 1998
Nigeria: 1994, 1998
South Africa: 1998
Tunisia: 1978, 1998
Zaire: 1974
Qualified for 2002: Cameroon, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia.
Will qualify for 2002: Either Nigeria or Liberia.
