The Africans Are Progressing by Leaps and Bounds

African Football: Making Giant StridesBy Matthew Hernon
Africa's greatest footballer over the past 50 years will be announced in February next year. Not surprisingly, the front-runners for the award are past players; George Weah and Abedi Pele. The former of the two won championships in France and Italy, as well as being named as the World's best player in 1995. The latter collected four French titles, appeared in two European cup finals and received the African footballer of the year award three times.
Following on from their success, African soccer stars are now playing a more prominent role in Europe's top leagues than ever before. The highest scorers in the English Premiership are Nigeria's Nwankwo Kanu and Didier Drogba of the Ivory Coast, who was recently described by his boss Jose Mourinho as currently the best striker in the world.
"At the moment, I don't think there is anybody better in the world scoring or playing like him."
It is a similar situation in France, with the three leading marksmen all coming from the World's second largest continent. Samuel Eto'o would also, surely be number one in Spain if he hadn't got injured in late September. (He is still in the top ten, despite having already missed the majority of the season)
It is not just up front where African players are thriving. Real Madrid have looked like a much more solid outfit in the past few months and one of the main reasons for that has been the form of Mali international; Mahamadou Diarra. In England, Ghanaian powerhouse Micheal Essien, has been a revelation for Chelsea, as the club attempts to win it's third consecutive title. There have been many other African stars who have been making headlines for their performances and the most pleasing aspect is that so many countries are represented; from Guinea to the DR Congo. The recent World Cup qualifiers emphasised the fact that football is developing throughout the continent and teams like Cameroon and Nigeria can no longer have things their own way. That is a trend that is likely to continue and that can only be good for the game.
That is not to say there aren't still problems; there are, in particularly from an economic and political standpoint. Also, on the international front, when it comes to tactics and organisation, European and South American sides are still far superior. In terms of individual talent, however, the future has never looked brighter. Youngsters like Chinedu Ogbuke of Nigeria and Morocco's Adil Chihi are constantly linked with the world's top teams. By the time the next World Cup comes around, there is every reason to believe that the number of African players at clubs like Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid will have increased further.
George Weah and Abedi Pele showed these young men that it was possible to go to Europe and achieve great things. For that, they deserve a lot of credit. One of them is likely to be rewarded by being named as Africa's best over the past half century. Aside from maybe Eto'o, there is likely to be little competition from those still playing. In ten years, though, it could be a very different story. Many African stars have the ability to go on and become world greats and if a similar award is given a decade from now, there is likely to be many more contenders.
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