I'm not going to South Africa. So instead I'm gonna try and watch a bit if not all of every game at work, or at home or in a bar or wherever. On the telly. With a beer. And I'm gonna predict who I think is gonna win. And talk about football stuff. So there.

Saturday 19 June 2010

32nd: CAMEROON

And so, the first victims of Africa's first World Cup is the African team Cameroon.

I predicted they'd get to the Round of 16, and they had the players to do so. The question is, did they have the temperament. Or the leadership. That's two questions. The answers to both are the same.

On the telly before their final game, ITV showed the team arriving at the ground and they looked like a bunch of sulky teenagers. They actually played well against the Danes, but the damage had been done against Japan. There's obviously been rows behind the scenes. I suspect Eto'o wasn't too enamoured at being played out on the right against Japan. Switching him to a more familiar central role today seemed to do the trick as he scored.

But their defence looked none too convincing. And they wouldn't have beaten the Dutch in the final game had the match mattered to either side. Now it doesn't. But having waited so long for the tournament to arrive on their continent, Cameroon represent the tip of Africa's underperforming iceberg, if such an analogy is decipherable. The African teams have now played 11 games and won only 1.