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Gambia’s Badjie Comments On The Progress Of African Football
Well as an African player playing in Swedish division 2 with Karlslund, I must admit that I don't know much about African soccer at the moment.
But, I do follow results and outcomes of African soccer nations when they play in major tournaments and of course the results of my mother nation, Gambia, who I think have improved a lot compared to so many years of struggle to emerge on the map of world and African football.
I think African football has been under development over the years and it’s moving towards the peak now. Before, when talking about football in Africa, one can only count on the likes of Nigeria, Cameroon, Morocco, Tunisia and a few more because those were the powerhouses of African football.
But we have recently seen a drastic change in the last two World Cups with the emergence of Senegal in the 2002 World Cup, followed by the surprise qualification of Togo, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Angola in Germany 2006.
So this is a big positive change in African football. It shows how competitive football is in Africa although people are facing difficulties there in running the game financially.
Poor infrastructure and maybe a few sports educators in place is another factor. I think the addition of foreign-based players in national teams makes it easier for the African nations to match their European opponents in major competitions.
I must also admit that I don't follow the African leagues, but I think the standards are very low there but still they produce the most talented players along with the South Americans.
Africans to me are the most skillful players with South Americans but we lack something, which is to be tactically intelligent.
Those are things that we Africans are not taught by local coaches when we are young whilst in Europe it is the opposite. Players are given the most attention when they are in the grassroot level. Europeans are more concentrated when playing than most Africans do and they are tactically better than us Africans.
I think working with the kids in academies and teaching them different tactics and letting them know where to be when attacking and where to be when defending is a very important thing that when combined with the technical aspect they have (the skills which are natural to them), no other continent will compete with Africans in producing good players in the near future.
The other setback in African football that is affecting its progress is the level of corruption in our game. If this is clean, it will be a very good step forward
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