There’s probably a sense of poetry in the fact that this year’s African Cup of Nations started at the same weekend as the third round of the English FA Cup. The FA Cup is deemed to be the competition of shocks – cupsets – and moments; where there’s a sense of unknown and gulf in quality sometimes doesn’t matter. That notion has proved flaky in a while, so much so that we’re now in a territory whereby we have to remind ourselves that the FA Cup is still a magical competition. Constant tells of ‘the FA Cup has lost its magic? Try telling that to fourth division Team X who just beat midtable Premier League side’ are so rife, they’ve become a running joke of their own.
In contrast, the 2021 AFCON – which was moved from its original year due to obvious reasons – has served as a reminder of how this competition does retain its magic. It’s not one that has to prove it does, it just does. As we enter exit the group stage, and head towards the Last 16, big names like Algeria – who are the holders – and Ghana have left us already, suffering ignominious eliminations, while sides like Senegal have barely scraped through, having scored just once in the competition – a 95th-minute penalty, at that. Meanwhile, Malawi, Gambia, and unfancied Comoros are preparing for the next round.
Much of modern football can feel a bit telegraphed. A bit too automated, and quite predictable. Manchester City have one foot on the Premier League title? Okay. Bayern Munich and PSG are running way with their domestic leagues? What else is new. As such, the rarity of when football doesn’t exactly ‘go according to plan’ is exciting, but laced with a tinge of sadness; we probably won’t get many of those moments.
But with AFCON, it seems like stuff not going according to plan is the plan. This competition is probably the last one whereby there remains a genuine element of fate about it. Almost like it’s less about what you plan to do, and actually about what destiny wills. How else will you explain Comoros, who hadn’t scored before, scoring three times to send Ghana packing, in their first tournament? Or Equatorial Guinea coming from behind to knock out Tunisia in the quarter-finals in 2015? Or Aristide Bance helping to power Burkina Faso to the final in 2013? There’s only so much reasoning you can do to figure why the team with the least goals in this year’s Group B – Senegal – finished top, while its top scorers – Zimbabwe – finished bottom of that group.
Of course, this is a reductive take. A lot of this is down to planning, a show of quality, terrific organisation, and more. This tournament has seen its fair share of brilliant goalkeeping, as well as teams with a sense of desire to match their planning. Plus, a format that rewards draws will always see sides play with mid-blocks and low-blocks, and catch a team used to playing on the front foot napping. But this all helps to power that sense of fate, one that still lingers. It’s not so much chaos as it is destiny.
A lot of the conversation about AFCON in the footballing world has centred on western white gaze. The whole issue of teams letting their players be available for the tournament; the questions about why the tournament is holding in the middle of the European season – as if, this is the first-ever AFCON to have held before – and not to mention the amplification of questionable moments on the pitch. A lot of it reeks of neoliberal anti-blackness, at the risk of exaggerating.
But those who are vested in AFCON know that’s not the point of this tournament. If you’re watching AFCON, or talking about AFCON, with the sense of ‘why is it holding at this time’, or ‘look at these refereeing issues’, you’re probably white, informed by whiteness, and/or this competition is not for you. AFCON remains arguably the centre of the sense of community that football gives you, that sense that modern day football (in its love affair with capitalism) wants to strip away.
AFCON is about the elation at the Nigerian victory, or the collective misery at conceding via a vicious free-kick in the last minute of semi-final. It’s about talking to your Guinean neighbours in Lagos after they beat Morocco in the group stage in 2008, or your Malian friends waiting to tell you how the Ivory Coast knocked your nation out in the semis in 2006, in the most venomous form of schadenfreude. It’s about the petty enjoyment of watching Carl Anka wail at Ghana’s failings, seeing the Equatorial Guinea journalist in utter elation, and witnessing Algerian Twitter go ballistic. It’s about fate, hope, joy, misery, and those other bits that club football is losing.
There have been discussions about how this might be the greatest footballing tournament there is. If that’s up for debate, there’s no arguing that this is its most communal. And so, to the Last 16.
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