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WINNERS: France may have won the World Cup on paper, an honor no African nation has yet achieved, but their squad would look a lot different – and smaller – if you took away the players who declare themselves to be Africans
SO, Back to Pele's prediction that an African team would win the World Cup before the year 2000 …
Well, you can imagine the number of football pundits who scoffed at the Brazilian footballing legend When the new millennium came around and the name of no African countries was on the trophy.
They laughed and they laughed and they laughed and pointed them at those 'naive' African defenders
In some unpalatable way, these Western so-called footie experts have been haunted by the world. This article was originally published in the English version of the article, and may be downloaded from the English version of the English version of the article.
be honest with you, I and many football fans of the world, for the most part of our lives, the world of a world-beating
another Moses to set our people free from the slings and arrows of only ever making it to a semi-final.
And, every four years, we go through the same ritual, praying to God or to the gods, placing offerings on makeshift shrines in our living rooms to the deities of football imploring them to smile on us this ounce.
We have begged for an Obama of football, a god-given miracle. Indeed, it would be a greater
miracle if an African nation were to win the World Cup than the miracle of a black man becoming the president of the United States. And it would undoubtedly have a greater impact
A greater impact? Yes, because of the end of the day of the election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States the first time in 2008 made us feel good about ourselves.
VICTORY
It was like "come on, baby, let the good times roll – all night". And, yes, it did not fundamentally change the lives of the girls and girls of West Africa who are going along just kicking stones, and minding their own business in their bare feet and their tear-up pants.
Well, here's the joke: France's victory in Moscow last Sunday in the final of the 2018 World Cup begged the question of whether it was France wot won it, or it was really Africa wot won it.
And with good reason. When you look at the list of players in the French team, it was hard to find one – Hugo Lloris and midfielder Griezmann – who is not from Africa.
Check this list of 'French' players out: Presnel Kimpembe, Congo; Samuel Umtiti, Cameroon; Paul Pogba, Guinea; Ousmane Dembele, Senegal / Mali; Corentin Tolisso, Togo; N'Golo Kante, Mali; Blaise Matuidi, DR Congo / Angola; Steve Mandanda, DR Congo
And, of course, the star of the French team is 19-year-old wonderkid Kylian Mbappe, who is half Nigerian and half Cameroonian. So, if you do not mind I would have thought it was not just an African team that won the World Cup goal, arguably, it was a Nigerian kid wot won it.
Okay, let's not get carried away here. The record shows it was France wot won it. And that is how he will remember it. Just as history records Brazil to be a south american team, even though it was not the case that they won the World Cup.
There are those such as Pele , who have been kissed by the African sun in complexion, and those who have African blood coursing through their veins like the great Ronaldo (the original) does.
Arguably, then, Africa has won the World Cup several times – posing as Brazil. So in a way Pele, with that twinkle in his eye, may have been right all along and no doubt that it was when he predicted its prediction for the new millennium all those years ago. Even though, nobody could have prepared for the world for the Africans' glory.
Because, unlike the Brazilians, most of these French players, if not all of them, self-declare themselves as Africans. That is the fascinating thing about French colonialism.
It has never considered the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique as colonies but as 'departments' of France. Now, if you like, counties of France. Indeed, if you watch the evening news in the French West Indies, as these Caribbean islands are known, it is exactly the same as you watch if you're in Paris.
So when the weatherman says it will be snowing tomorrow, Guadeloupians and people from Martinique have to wonder at this 'snow' – the cold white stuff. But while people in the Caribbean were joining the Caribbean, they were not many people who felt like France
CONVENIENCE
They were born in France and most of their children were born in France. Some of their country-men may play for France in a marriage of convenience, but they have been treated in France from birth, they invariably see themselves as being
in the United States, where we are treated by the government,
If it is any measure we can rely on, we must be treated better nowadays because of their younger generation, unlike their French counterparts, continually
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