All I know is Equatorial Guinea was a Spanish colony, then you have Angola which is of Portuguese descent. With regards to other talented Africans, what about that kid at Coventry from Burundi? Some complicated name that I can't remember
There are over 50 countries in Africa and many of them have decent sides and one could probably name one decent player from at least 30 different countries, however most of the players we know of come from a handful of countries such as Ghana, Ivory Coast, Algeria and Egypt. This is the west coastal countries (that also includes Benin and Togo) and the north African countries (Morocco, Tunisia etc), which long has had more stability and pedigree, although it is uncertain why the west cape should produce so many good players, as apart from Ghana few are particularly stable.
Probably a lot. There is probably a quiz on that site from my earlier thread (Little teaser to get you through the afternoon) about that.
Gael Bigrimana fled Burundi at a young age and got himself a trial at Coventry. Where is Burundi anyways?
Next door to Rwanda. He actually fled to the Congo which led in turn to him coming over here, presumably as a refugee.
The Congo is such a massive area, perhaps we should be looking there as Kompany, Samba and a fair few in French football have that nationality.
That's true but people tend not to be starving like in East Africa; Sudan and Somalia particularly are synonymous with constant war and famine. The Congo is mainly thick rainforest and is ruled by warlords and child armies, not exactly conducive to scouting for footballers. The well-known players of Congolese descent tend to be refugees who have been brought up in Europe (often Belgium, as its former colonist).
This really is fantastic, I had a feeling this may happen. The best thing about Africa is they LOVE football, it's ruddy mental. The people there are more dedicated about football than we are here, one of you guys mentioned about a program on BBC in the Indian Ocean, I went to the Maldives to coach football. Best thing I've ever done, so dedicated and always look to learn and improve. All they do is play and once they finish they settle down to watch every game the Prem League has to offer on that day and then once that finishes they then stay up for La Liga. Great move by Saints and what a fantastic thing for Jaidi to get stuck into now he's retired.
I guess it depends if we are talking about The Congo or The Democratic Republic of Congo; both were embroiled in civil war, however I believe one of them is now recovering, a bit like Rwanda which has done amazingly well to recover since the mid-90s genocide. Still it seems a bit wrong looking for footballers in these parts!
Curious what the economics of satellite academies/development programs are like. In baseball, the finances of which I know a little better, they represent unmatched value-for-money...might not be nearly as good, but for a relatively low cost it's a great investment in the future of the club. Wonderful purpose to set Jaidi to, as well.
Yeah they are both in a pretty dire state, but ironically it's the 'democratic' one that is the worse of the two. Schad I'd love to know more about how these satellite academies work in baseball, any reading material you can recommend?
I'll see whether I can turn something up. Just by way of a brief rundown, many teams (I'd estimate at least half) operate academies in the Dominican Republic, which is the biggest hotbed of international talent, some others in developing markets such as Venezuela, and a couple teams are now plumbing the depths in Colombia. One very forward-thinking team has even now opened an academy in Brazil, which has absolutely no baseball history to speak of (though my team just debuted the first Brazilian-born major leaguer this past week, coincidentally). The interesting angle is that these academies do not guarantee that the players will sign with the team whose academy they attended; there's no formal tie binding the players, but from a scouting dimension it's invaluable, and usually allows first crack at the players. From an economic standpoint, it's a no-brainer; the Chicago Cubs are building a new facility, which is massive, for $6-8m US, and I'd imagine that annual operating costs will be somewhere in the $1-1.5m range. Because of the cost controls that baseball imposes on young players in the Collective Bargaining Agreement, a merely average major leaguer can provide $20m-30m in surplus value (ie., the cost required to sign a free agent to provide the same production, minus their salary) over their first six seasons in the bigs. Thus, while most of these kids may not go on to achieve much -- most won't even make it to the minor leagues in the States, let along the majors -- if you find and develop one good player every four or five years, it's a hugely profitable enterprise.
That's very interesting. I wonder how that would tie into the financial fair play rules that will inevitably be imposed, and how that might compare with the collective bargaining agreement; perhaps securing young talent for relatively little money will be even more vital in the future, when it is simply not possible to buy the best players from around the world even if you can technically afford it. The only concern I have is with work permits and so on, say we do uncover a few gems in an African academy, how would we get them into the UK?
Perhaps just send them straight through passport control now that the government have sacked all their border workers...
I suspect that it will be, especially for mid-tier teams that want to punch above their weight. They cannot compete on the same playing field as the elite clubs, but if they can source talent before they become international sensations, they can either lift their fortunes in the league, or turn a healthy profit on player sales that would allow them to spend a little more freely elsewhere. It'll be interesting to watch the Sunderland experiment as a potential guidepost...while they don't have a full-fledged academy (and we likely will not, either), they now have a partnership with the successful Ghanaian team Asante Kotoko to build their image in the area, and to have eyes and ears in a country that now produces a good many top class players. It's absolutely a confounding factor...hell, the work permit system is confounding, period. Maintaining a continental feeder team where players can wait for permits -- as Manchesters blue and red have in Belgium -- is an option, but an admittedly flawed one. Making the rules more rational would be all the better, but that'll never happen.
Yes! I don't mind doing a bit of scouting for the club, could help find another Dempsey or Bradley. Only nineteen 'proper' teams so would be a pretty easy gig also. If it works for Bolton and Fulham it can work for us! (Talking of which US players always 'come home' after playing abroad, Kasey Keller was commentating on a Seattle Sounders game the other week!)
