WITHOUT question, the most significant development in African football in 2011 is the fall of the four giants. That South Africa, Egypt, Cameroun and Nigeria will be absent from the Africa Cup of Nations coming up in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in about four weeks time marks a milestone in the history of the championship.There must have been a seismic shift for all four national teams to capitulate at the same time and to much lesser teams. The big question now is: Does this mark an authentic change of guards in African football that will sustain beyond the Nations Cup' It is important to address the question, look at what possibly could have brought about this catastrophic situation and predict what might happen as we advance into 2012.South Africa. SA is a powerful force in African football but the least amongst the fallen four. South Africa has come a long way since its return to the global game almost 20 years ago. Reinforced with a proper administrative machinery, advanced economic support, a well-organised domestic league, good infrastructure and major international competitions and experiences garnered from them, South Africa should have no reason not to maintain a stranglehold on the game in Africa.Many have wondered why the standard of its football has not grown beyond where it currently is. The country has not won any major competition since 1996 and it's outing at the last World Cup it hosted left most of Africa disappointed and wondering. I was in South Africa in 1993 when the gates to African football were reopened to the country. I saw supremely gifted players, genuine football artists who had been starved of the game for so long that could not wait to explode on the African scene. They took the game, even without a massive public following, to heights that brought the country's first and only victory at the African Cup of Nations in 1996.I read, watched and also saw film clips of the football artists of that era and from the past, from Jomo Suno to Dr. Khumalo up to Mark Fish and so on.Ironically, with growth in followership of the domestic game, administration and infrastructure came a decline in quality players with a winning mentality. With the hunger for performance satiated, South African players began to look like spoilt children overfed with praise and incentives that are anathema to what breeds players that can play and 'die' just to win.That's where the players from Cameroun and Nigeria are different.Cameroun. All things put together, this is a country that does not deserve to be at the apex of any level of football, least of all Africa. Its awesome achievements in the continent is a direct contradiction of what it offers the game. This is an African country that has only one first class football stadium. Every other stadium is mushroom, to say the least. Football administration in the country is always turbulent and does not boast modern facilities.Its domestic league is not well patronised and funded by the private sector. It has only three or four top clubs that rotate the winning of the league amongst themselves. The entire country does not have proper training fields and has never hosted any major tournament in Africa.Yet, its footballers have reigned supreme in the continent and many have become true legends of the game even beyond Africa. They play every match like people possessed, ensuring always that no team goes away from a match against them without getting 'bloodied'.Camerounian players are supreme athletes running and covering every blade of grass on any field they play on. They fight like lions. I played against them a couple of times in the 1970s and know what I am talking about. They are born fighters, never taking prisoners and never giving an inch. Add to that the skills they develop mastering playing on the rough fields around the country, and you come up with a team that justifies its 'indomitable' description always. So what happened to that team in 2011'For the first time, the team looked weak and vulnerable, slowed down by age and by the emerging influence of a massive and continuous exodus of its best young players who depart prematurely these days without fully developing the fighting spirit and winning mentality of the past.It must rediscover itself!Nigeria. For the past two decades, Nigeria was acknowledged as a true giant of African football dreaded by all teams. It's greatest problem is that as the game developed progressively in terms of players there was no commensurate development in administration to sustain the game's upward movement. The country became a victim of its national politics, with the appointment of administrators not on the basis of merit but on an ethnic zoning system, political affiliation and so on.As a result, the game's growth stagnated and success became dependent on whatever dice the elements threw up from this most populous Black nation on earth. Nigeria has the population, the resources, the natural athletes, the harsh conditions that hone winners, and the followership required to lift a team to extra-ordinary heights. But like South Africa, the country is suffering from a spoilt-child effect. Over pampered and misplaced sense of accomplishments, the Nigerian player has lost the teeth to bite.Coaching, administration and inadequate infrastructure, a poor domestic league and a total absence of a grassroots development plan has truncated what could have been a steady growth. So what happened in 2011' All of the above put together will make any team in the world lose its focus and find itself wandering in limbo. That's where Nigeria is at the moment.Egypt. This country is an enigma. No one can fully understand its present floundering. It has a superb and well-organised domestic league, very accomplished and experienced administrators, some of the best infrastructure in the continent, and a football system that ensures a continuous production of good players in the local league, who spend enough time within it to impact the national team before being shipped abroad, if at all. Egypt has everything including very serious competition by neighbouring North African countries that keeps the country always in great shape. One wonders what could have gone wrong this time to the only country in Africa to have won the African Cup of Nations five times!Of the four fallen giants, it is only Egypt that is likely to take its absence from CAN 2012 as an unfortunate accident and will bounce back very soon. For the three others, I hope it is not a major paradigm shift in African football from which they will not recover even after the Nations Cup.
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