The Beginning of the End for European Coaches in Africa?
As usual, the majority of the coaches at the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations were not African, but European. Six out of the 16 coaches were French, three were German, one was Polish, one Dutch. There was also a Brazilian.
Angola - Luís Oliveira Gonçalves (Angolan)
Benin - Reinhard Fabisch (German)
Côte d’Ivoire - Gérard Gili (French)
Cameroon - Otto Pfister (German)
Egypt - Hassan Shehata (Egyptian)
Ghana - Claude Le Roy (French)
Guinea - Robert Nouzaret (French)
Mali - Jean-François Jodar (French)
Morocco - Henri Michel (French)
Namibia - Arie Schans (Dutch)
Nigeria - Berti Vogts (German)
Senegal - Henryk Kasperczak (Polish) [asst. Lamine N'Diaye took over for final game]
South Africa - Carlos Alberto Parreira (Brazilian)
Sudan - Mohamed Abdallah (Sudanese)
Tunisia - Roger Lemerre (French)
Zambia - Patrick Phiri (Zambian)
That leaves just four coaches who had the same passports as their players: Angola’s Luís Oliveira Gonçalves (pictured,) Egypt’s Hassan Shehata, Sudan’s Mohamed Abdallah and Zambia’s Patrick Phiri.
The problem isn’t just that so many coaches are non-African, it’s that it’s the same few men. The likes of Otto Pfister, Claude Le Roy and Henri Michel have coached multiple African teams and seem to be on a sort of rotation policy between them. All very nice for them, but because there’s this strange pool of “For Hire” European coaches, opportunities for African coaches are hard to come by.
But maybe Africa Cup of Nations 2008 marks a turning point. Maybe. High profile foreign coaches have failed at this tournament. Berti Vogts may have qualified for the quarter-finals, but the Geman’s spell in charge of Nigeria has still been a bit of a shambles. Henryk Kasperczak didn’t even make it through all three games before packing his bags and leaving his assistant in charge. Highly paid World Cup winner Carlos Alberto Parreira and his experimental South African team finished bottom of Group D. But Henri Michel is the best example. Moroccan Mohammed Fakhir had led the Atlas Lions through Africa Cup of Nations 2008 qualification perfectly well, but the Moroccan FA decided to push fakhir aside and rehire Frenchman Michel, who they had already fired once back in 2000. The result was a team that crashed out of a Group A that was there for the taking. They must surely be regretting that decision.
On the other side of the coin two of the four African coaches made it to the quarter-finals. Mohamed Abdallah’s Sudan were never going to make it, but Patrick Phiri’s Zambia put up a good fight and played some decent football. Hassan Shehata’s Egypt look to be one of the favourites while Luís Oliveira Gonçalves’ Angola have been the tournament’s surprise package, making the knockout stages for the first time.
For me, Luís Oliveira Gonçalves is the big hope for African coaches. His success shows that smaller nations can be successful by appointing native coaches, especially if they’re familiar with the set-up. Gonçalves was coach of Angola’s U-20 team before taking the national team job and is successfully integrating those younger players into the senior team now.
So I’m hoping Egypt and Angola go far in this tournament, and I’m hoping the various African national football associations pay attention. You can’t always buy success with a mercenary European coach, but you can build for the future with an African coach.
Related Posts
Subscribe
|
Print
|
Share        |
Comments
By Rami | February 1st, 2008 at 1:01 pm 
I was watching a show on a Tunisian channel following Angola’s second half comeback versus Senegal and an analyst made a good point about the Angolan squad and just African coaches in general. He said that players feel a lot of pride when their coach is from their country and that they will fight for him that much harder if they like him and do not want to see him take the blame for the results. Its not rocket science but the common sense of picking up a coach that knows the country is there. The counter argument is that sometimes the players do not respect domestic coaches sometimes. I think it all should be dealt with on a case by case basis as there is no exact science to picking a good coach. But I think Angola does draw a lot of pride from having a coach from their country guiding them through.
Posted from 
United States
By Laurie | February 1st, 2008 at 6:01 pm Excellent post. And also, what Rami said. Doesn’t look like Diouf and company respected Lamine Ndiaye more than they did Henri Kasperczak. It probably depends a lot on both the players and the coach. Like anywhere.
Posted from United States
By Pedro | February 1st, 2008 at 11:39 pm Daryl and crew: i would just like to add that both shehata and goncalves cant go all the way as they cancel each other out in the q-final. Secondly the FAs need to be bold, identify their local candidate and back all the way…and no knee jerk decisions till the contract is over. I will also add that mostly would work well in a team where they are not many ego-triping star players, for these players think they have a better ideas as they are “coached” by the “best”, e.g shehata vs mido in the 2006afcon, mantorras vs goncalves prior to the 2006 afcon and world cup season just to mention few examples. 3rdly the public also need 2 b educated in giving the coach a chance, i think in most african countries they think a european coach produces better results, hence people like goncalves are perpetualy being fired by thd public when 1 or 2 results doesnt go their way e.g up 2 a week ago the public was calling for him 2 b fired as he lacked ideas, or so they say, during the world cup the same thing, then it was perceived to lack ambition, damn the man got it right, we were in a team where we were expected to be the weeping boys but yet we suffered only 1-0 defeat and 2 draws, you’ll at your 1st atempt and not being a major soccer nation but the public being as fickle they are they still wanna see the back off him everyday, do you guys think that their “demands” is right?
Posted from 
Germany
By Pedro | February 1st, 2008 at 11:43 pm Sorry for my grammar mistakes iam typing from my cellphone
Posted from Germany
By Brad | February 2nd, 2008 at 1:19 pm Here’s hoping you are right Rami as far as Togo is concerned. In 2006, Nigerian Stephen Keshi led them in an impressive WC qualification but then was fired after the ACN. Otto Pfister came in and did nothing. Can you expect a team to really come together and play well under a European that just comes in and takes over? I’m glad Keshi is back with Togo, I’d prefer him over just about any non-African coach right now.
Posted from 
Canada
By Kiko | February 2nd, 2008 at 1:32 pm Pedro
The problem with Goncalves is that he gets it totally wrong sometimes (An example would be in the World Cup against Iran, when he brought in a defender even though angola needed to score another goal to go through: Iran ended up scoring as a result!). That really annoyed many people (including me) and it looked like the guy lacked ambition. There are other examples of course. But in the bright side, he got angola to the WC and through to the quarters for the first time, so maybe he deserves another chance. (By the way, I doubt people are complaining about him now!) 
Posted from 
United Kingdom
By Pedro | February 2nd, 2008 at 10:57 pm Hey kiko, you will be surprised, some fickle “fans” credit angola’s recent success to the players only as they believe the coach adds nothing. Yes kiko plenty of times i got it wrong but so does Mourinho, ferguson, Dunga, and Parreira. History would be kind to the man, it was our second point where a zero point was expected. In fact i think he got it right, remember up to 2006 Angola only played mainly with african’s players and in terms of confidence they were not in the right frame of mind to exhibit more offensive play. In terms of respect he gets a raw deal; in 1996 carlos alhinho was the coach he qualified angola to their first afcon, we had only one point in the group stages yet that man until today is revered as a semi-god by the public, although statistics will show you that he achieved nothing, dont you perhaps think is because of his european’s connection?
Just to add, i would say this african’s FAs dont respect the local talent, looked at how keshi was treated after he qualified Togo to the world cup? Looked at how eguaveon was treated after the 2006 afcon, even more recently looked at how the local morrocan coach was sidelined after he secured qualification for the afcon? All these, and they are plenty more examples, were sidelined in favour of the europeans coach and guess what? They brought nothing new or even different. The african coaches need to fight more for their recognition otherwise the tide is not going to change as europeans coaches get more agressive in persuit of the “african market”, e.g Lothar Mathaus plea that he is available to coach any top african team, even to a certain extent Marcel Desailly “i want to coach ghana”, these coaches need and should prove themselves first at the highest echeleons of football before they should be considered as the “messiah” of african football, which is clearly in ascendancy.
Posted from Germany
By Pedro | February 3rd, 2008 at 12:22 am Lol, i just read my comments and i realised that i referred to Goncalves in the 1st person:-D, my bad. Just a bit of more info, prior to the 2006 afcon and world cup season, Dunga was invited to Angola by the FA and there was an approach for him to act as a “consultant” and Goncalves refused to working under any foreign coach, even more so a back then was a rookie with no coaching experience, now with hindsight i know that he was right as our good showing in the world cup would’ve solemly credited to Dunga even though he didnt even qualify them to the world cup, thats how fickle the general african supporter normally is.
Posted from Germany
Comments are closed
