It's never quite happened for the Africans at the World Cup. Despite Pele predicting they'd win it before the year 2000, they've still never got beyond the quarter finals, and this year they haven't even got that far. As is now traditional they gave a good account of themselves, they impressed with their skills and effort, they made new friends and admirers etc etc, but it was Europe that got the actual results. And so it goes, most of the time. There's the occasional Isandhlwana but it's nearly always Rorke's Drift, and guess who ends up with all the silver.
It happens in football today for the same reasons it happened for real in the nineteenth century. If you come from the places with the money, your technology gives you the edge. Spears are little use against a Lee Enfield, and flair and effort on the pitch are just as likely to come up short against the technical advantages enjoyed by wealthier nations.
I've talked before about the benefits of all playing in the same few leagues. Another advantage is the quality and quantity of backroom support that European football money can buy. These days the most important member of the team isn't the goalkeeper, or even the manager. It's the statistician, the guy (or rather the guys) crunching the numbers. They take the raw data, they work out kilometres run, pass completion rates, and so on, and they pass these numbers in simplified form to the manager. He simplifies them again for the benefit of the players, who let's face it aren't picked for their statistical acumen, and the team goes out to play with a series of pithy generalisations about the opposition in their heads. The keeper's vulnerable to crosses whipped in from the right, or the striker's too sharp inside, so always show him the outside. That kind of thing.
As the game develops, the stats guys are still in the back room working away. They calculate how players are doing and pass this information to the manager, who makes substitutions and formation changes accordingly. It really isn't Roy of the Rovers any more.
The African players mainly play in Europe, so they're used to getting this information at their clubs, but only the rich countries can afford this level of research for their national teams, and at the top level it's the research that gives you the edge.
It isn't a precise science, and at the beginning of the tournament the statistical sample is small, so it isn't enough to guarantee results. Occasionally a country like Costa Rica goes some way into the knockout phase. By the semifinals, though, the statistical sample has grown large enough to swing the course of events. We like to think spirit, heart and guts will win out over the number crunchers, but of course spirit, heart and guts are there on both sides, so when you balance out the equation by subtracting the common elements the number crunching is what you're left with.
If you actually do the equations it looks like this
Number crunching (N) = Cleverness (C) x money (M)
European cleverness (CE) = African cleverness (CA)
European money (ME) > African money (MA)
Therefore
European number crunching (NE) > African number crunching (NA)
European heart (HE) = African heart (HA)
Success = Numbers + Heart
Therefore
European success is more common than African success
Did you notice how I spelt out the last line in full? Imagine I was your manager giving you the simple version. Imagine what this implies about my estimation of your statistical acumen.
Today was a lot more analytical than wisecracking again, wasn't it? So bite me. Actually do bite me, it'll give me something funny to write about.
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