Hockey ladies win battle for women's sport in SA

London here we come... Sulette Damons celebrates her goal with teammate Nicolene Terblanche (20) during the 2012 Olympic hockey qualifying tournament's final match against India.

Congratulations are in order for the South African women’s hockey team after they won an international qualifying tournament for 2012 Olympics. The significance of their victory is that there is no longer any doubt about their mettle as the squad prepare to participate in the London Olympics later this year.

Even more remarkable is that the SA ladies earned their right in fine style, hammering tournament host India 5-2 in the final match. The tournament was held in New Delhi, and that the SA team won in front of a hostile crowd bears testimony to their mental resolve apart from their inch-perfect physical conditioning.
The team had already qualified, through the African qualifying tournament. But the Olympic sports organization in South Africa, Sascoc, ordered the ladies to play and qualify through the New Delhi tournament. Sascoc had felt the African competition did not provide strong enough challenge for captain Marsha Marescia and the girls.

Though they sounded harsh, Sascoc’s standpoint was spot on. The SA women’s team is currently ranked 12th, and after the tournament in India, the team now look strong and confident enough to hold their own against the teams above them in the rankings. Some people want to think that Olympics is about the gathering of nations for goodwill and games. But realities of modern times stand inimically to that notion of participation and feel good all around.

The Olympic Games today are the pinnacle of competition for elite sportsmen and women. It is from this perspective that the feat of the SA women in India needs to be appreciated and applauded. According to Marescia (273 caps), the SA team was the most experienced at the winner-takes-all qualifying tournament, with its players collectively overwhelming all other teams with the number of caps earned over the years. Moreover, the team boasts real world class material in players such as scoring world record holder Pietie Coetzee (235 caps), keeper Mariette Rix (135) and Tarryn Bright (187).

Younger players are not doing shabbily either, as was seen with the form of 22-year-old striker Sulette Damons (70) and fellow striker Shelley Russell, 24, with 138 caps. Quality permeates through this squad that even when Coetzee was out injured in India, Damon, Russell and Dirkie Chamberlain kept the scoreboard busy. In terms of raising the flag for women in sport, particularly Olympic sports in this instance, the SA hockey team has raised the number of South African women who have secured their tickets to London.

Both the hockey team and Banyana Banyana, the SA women’s football team, will each send 18 players to the Olympics – a total of 36 women! Other women who have secured their berths so far are marathon runner Rene Kalmer, rowers Lee-Ann Persee and another woman still to be determined between Hayley Arthur and Naydene Smith, and K1 (single person) canoeist Bridgitte Hartley.

More SA women are expected to qualify in swimming and athletics, while Ashley Heldsinger is the only female gymnast still with a chance to make it to London. But it is not enough, given the number of sport codes at the Olympics, including table tennis which, in my opnion, should not present logistical problems in making it available for all in a country like South Africa.

Even disturbing is that many youngsters do not know team sports such as volleyball or handball. The reason is that these fairly easy to manage sports are not available in their communities. My message to Sascoc and its affiliated federations is that bring these sports to the people. These codes don’t require much to safeguard and maintain grounds and equipment.

Tonight the men's national football team Bafana Bafana are playing Senegal in a friendly in Durban. I honestly do not know what to say about the game, save to say: guys, you know what you must do.

Time to shake off inferiority complex

South African soccer is numb with shock from its fallen fortunes, despite the best resources the game enjoys in Africa’s biggest economy. The victory of Zambia in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations has, to a great extend, highlighted how we have fallen behind in Africa’s pecking order.

I subscribe to the argument that the ills of South African football will be healed by a strong domestic league. And that strength must immediately translate to competiveness on the continent. It is therefore imperative for Orlando Pirates and Black Leopards up the ante in the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup respectively.

Leopards had a stuttering start yesterday when they were held to a 1-1 draw in Polokwane by Motor Action from Zimbabwe. The Limpopo side now face an uphill in the second leg either in Harare where Motor Action are based, or in Mutare where the club play most of its home matches in the 10000-capacity Sakubva Stadium.

Pirates today get a chance to set the tone for their intention to be crowned African champions again since 1995, and as well as setting the national agenda clear about SA’s ambition to be a force to be reckoned with again in African football.

The Buccaneers open their 2012 Champions League against the new champions of Angolan football, Club Recreativo Desportivo do Libolo, in Port Elizabeth today. The Angolans have shown their intentions by setting a month-long camp in South Africa, playing several friendlies with local teams and other Angolan teams that have set up camp mostly in Pretoria. Recreativo has a previous stint in the Champions League, in 2010 after finishing runners-up in the Girabola in 2009 (won that year by Inter Luanda).

Orlando Pirates are currently on a roll in domestic competition, and won all trophies on offer in 2011. With the resources at their disposal, including some of the country's talented players in all areas of the field, it’s about Pirates broke down the psychological barrier which has limited SA teams in continental championships. The limitation – either due to inferiority complex or plain naivete – can also explain why even Bafana Bafana fail to win in places like Sierra Leone and Niger.

Champions League is the ticket to the Fifa World Club Cup. The time is now for Pirates; what more would they want for a good run in the Champions League?   

Cosafa region should build on Zambia's success

Rallying cry... Zambia's success in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations should be the foundation for Cosafa's quest to act big.

The success of Zambia in the Africa Cup of Nations needs to be consolidated and be used as a foundation to strengthen the bargaining power of Cosafa region in African football. The Cosafa leadership needs to call an urgent meeting, in Lusaka, to deliberate on the meaning of Zambia’s victory for the region, and for the organization.

Judging by the chaos that transpired in the last gathering of Cosafa in Botswana in December 2011, when the presidential election was the major issue, the organization acted clumsily and disgracefully in addressing the matter at hand. It was disgraceful that interests of outsiders were entertained by the executives who were only concerned about preserving their positions.

I am one of those who feel Suketu Patel does not have the clout to duel with the big boys in Africa’s soccer politics. However let the fact that Patel has retained his presidency be water under the bridge, and work must start now to strengthen his presidency and the organization. Both sides – for and against him – in the last elections must bury the hatchet and formulate a clear strategy to firstly fast-track the development of football in the region, and secondly to forge a spirit of solidarity in the efforts of all members.

The example for the latter was provided in the 2012 Afcon, where debutants Botswana felt alone in an intimidating environment. I did not get the sense that Cosafa members, individually or collectively behind the banner of the organization, made any attempt to offer Botswana – the two other qualified members Angola and Botswana – any support. Botswana, more than the more experienced and better resourced Angola and Zambia, deserved more attention.

The attitude to Botswana by other Cosafa members should have been in these terms: “how can we help you?” The campaign of Botswana, as well as Angola and Zambia, in 2012 Afcon was for the region as a whole, whose soccer bosses were all there in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea even though their countries did not qualify. 

I don’t begrudge the executives for being at the Afcon, it goes with their jobs. What I resent is them being there to focus on VIP treatment, other than pulling strings for the betterment of the region. They can start this work in the special meeting I am hoping would be called later this month or sometime in March. This deal must be concluded while it’s still hot. Zambia’s success should not be a once-off as far as the fortunes of the region are concerned. Cosafa as an organisation should be stronger than before, and briskly build muscle to grow this strength.

One of the crucial building blocks available for Cosafa is the Cecafa region. There is quite a lot that is common between the two regions than what separates them. Cosafa should therefore make forging a strong alliance with Cecafa an agenda issue for its special meeting. The geographical and cultural ties between the two are naturally strong, therefore a proposal for an alliance will be like a natural progression.

Cecafa needs a strong Cosafa in the power stakes in African football, especially with east Africa’s quest to host the Afcon for the first time ever. Poorer west African nations Burkina Faso and Mali hosted in 1998 and 2000, thanks to the assistance they received from CAF. But a better resourced Kenya, Uganda or Tanzania cannot even be afforded the privilege of co-hosting. Some say the east Africans’ sin is that they do not have oil to succeed the last three hosts – Angola, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea – as well as the next two hosts after SA in 2013, Morocco (2015) and Libya (2017).

Such conspiracy theories cannot be dismissed summarily; politics that saw west and north Africa enjoying direct support from CAF is real. The two regions enjoy that status because of the bargaining power they enjoy, and the ruthlessness with which they pursue their interests.

Cosafa must catch a wake up and open all channels that are necessary to make this region a super candidate in power politics of CAF. One of our own, Molefi Oliphant, is a vice-president there but that privilege is of no benefit to the region as Oliphant is not acting on Cosafa’s cue. He is not even representing policy ambitions of the current executive of the SA Football Association (Safa).

The fomer Safa president is there as part of CAF president Issa Hayatou’s inner circle, something which spells doom for the region knowing Hayatou’s attitude towards the south. Cecafa in east Africa can say they feel the same way too about Hayatou, which makes sense why the two regions need to urgently collaborate on matters of mutual interest.

The time to act is now – Zambia’s success must be used as the rallying cry to permanently lift the Cosafa region out of the abyss. And lastly, but very significant, let Kalusha Bwalya be afforded an increased influence within the organisation. We cannot go very far when we have all the football brains we need right here.

·         Cosafa = Council of Southern Africa Football Associations, head office Gaborone, Botswana

·         Cecaca = Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations, head office Nairobi, Kenya

·         CAF = Confederation of African Football, head office October 6 City, Egypt

 

Zambia - just do it!

Zambia is standing on the verge of a soccer history, which was delayed for nearly 20 years. In 1993 Zambia’s team, which is strongly believed to have been one of the most formidable national teams the continent of Africa has ever produced, crashed from the air off the coast of Gabon.

On that fateful day on 27 April 1993 the squad were heading to Dakar, Senegal, for a 1994 World Cup qualifier. Their plane had made a brief stop at Gabonese captial of Libreville for refueling and other technical checks, before crashing into the Atlantic Ocean on takeoff.

The only survivors from that team were midfielders, Kalusha Bwalya and Charly Musonda, who were both based in Netherlands and Belgium respectively. Their circumstances for not being on the DHC-5 Buffalo plane are different. Bwalya, who at the time played for Ajax Amsterdam, had made his own arrangements to travel to Dakar, while Musonda could not travel to Lusaka to join his teammates due to injury. He was at the time playing for Anderlecht.

While the traumatized Musonda never wanted to play international football again, Bwalya continued to be the glue that kept the new national team together. Bwalya, a gifted footballer and natural leader, captained the new squad to relative success, including reaching the final match of the 1994 Cup of Nations in Tunisia, where they lost to Nigeria. Zambia also narrowly lost out on qualifying for 1994 World Cup in the US.

Before Bafana Bafana victory in 1996 Cup of Nations, Zambia had for a long time been the No1 ranked football team in southern Africa. It may regain this status when the latest Fifa rankings are released on Wednesday (Feb 15), owing to their fairytale run in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations.

It is ironic that their moment of glory of is about to happen in the city where 19 years ago Zambia mourned its worst soccer disaster. Bwalya is still in leadership, albeit as the president of the Zambian FA. Another Musonda, a defender called Joseph from Lamontville Golden Arrows, is the current squad most capped player – with 99 caps! So the omens are in good order for the biggest party in Lusaka since independence in 1964.  

For that to happen, Zambia must move mountain – and the Elephants! Their opponents, Ivory Coast, are simply the best team on the continent, hence theirNo 1 ranking in Africa. Their Ivorians draw their players from the best leagues in Europe, while Zambia’s Chipolopolo squad is largely based on the continent.

Their Europe-based players are Emmanuel Mayuke (21) at Yound Boys in Switzerland and Chisamba Lungu (20) in Russia, where he plays for second division’s Ural Oblast. As far as Lungu is concerned, being  based in the football backwater of Ekateringburg, where European Russia meets its Asian side – all 1700km from Moscow, bears testimony to any young man’s mental resolve.

Veteran strikers James Chamanga and Christopher Katongo complete Zambia’s four-man overseas contingent, as both men are based in China. The rest of Chipolopolo include 8 South African-based players (including Clifford Mulenga), 5 DR Congo-based players – all contracted to TP Mazembe, and Sudan-based Jonas Sakuwaha who plays for Al Merreick.

So win or lose, Zambia have fought a good fight for the honour of African leagues.  Ghana do not longer look at themselves the same way since Zambia disposed of them in the semifinals. Zambia’s strength this Afcon campaign had never been in big-name players but on technical discipline and harmony in camp, despite Mulenga’s sacking for unscheduled partying.

The healthy mix of experience – provided by Katongo, Musonda and Chamnga – has also worked wonders when combined with young talent such as Mayuka, Lungu and Rainford Kalaba, who at just 25, has amassed 60 caps for the senior team.

Kalaba is the shining example of a string of young Zambian players who came through ranks from under-20 structures, who have dominated the Cosafa U-20 Cup with so much ferocity since inception. From the 2011 edition of the Cosafa U20, which Zambia won, 17 year old Evans Kangwa was simply the best player of the tournament. The Nkana striker is in the Afcon squad, mainly as an understudy for greater missions lying ahead.

It is clear that Zambia has more reasons than Ivory Coast to win the Afcon. I have said my take. It’s up to you now boys – just do it!

Cheruiyot on fire!

The best. . . Vivian Cheruiyot confidently poses with her Laureus awards trophy.

Everybody knows Novak Djokovic, the hard-working No 1 tennis player in the world. So there was no surprise there when he was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year winner on Monday.

The female equivalent award went to Kenyan middle distance runner, Vivian Cheruiyot. “Chariot who,” many gasped in surprise and total ignorance of an excellent sportswoman of our times. The ignorance is annoying but can be understood in the positioning of sportswomen as sex symbols.

At 28 Vivian is clearly not an upstart and surely not a late achiever as far as winning titles is concerned; she’s been at it since she was 15 when she took silver in the IAAF world cross country championships in 1999. A year later she won the gold in the same event in Vilamoura, Portugal.

Cheruiyot has been the winner ever since and the past two years she just swept the boards, with 2011 being her crowning glory. That year she took the unique 5000m and 10000m double at the IAAF World Championships in Daegu, Korea, and the senior title at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Punta Umbria, Spain.

It is a mystery, therefore, why the IAAF conferred their female athelete of the year title for 2011 on Australian one-hit wonder, Sally Pearson. Compared to Vivian, Sally only won the 100m hurdles title in Daegu last year. Only the powers that be know how an athlete who won three IAAF could play second fiddle to one-title winner.
Anyway, it appears the Laureus have managed to correct IAAF’s howler and restored sanity by picking a deserving winner, who did not only compete with fellow track and field competitors but with the best of the best in all sports for the title.

Not the one for cameras at glamorous events, Vivian, clad in a silver evening dress, was as modest as ever when she recieved her trophy in the televised event. "Last year was a big year for me," she just managed to state the obvious, with her voice shaking.

She may not be a focus of flesh-seeking cameras and sex-symbol starved public, but the young lady from Keiyo district in the Rift Valley province of Kenya looks every part the champion. And that's the beauty of her contribution to human development and quest for excellence. It is also significant to note that she is the first woman from Africa to win the Laureus sportswoman of the year award since these awards were founded 12 years ago.

Vivian is only happy for the attention of her husband Moses Kiplagat Kirui, who also took over her training last year. After completing her double at Daegu last year, she famously remarked: "Since I got married to him in 2007, my athletics career has been successful. He's a loving and caring husband.”

How sweet. . .

Of Nations, Geopolitics and Mind Games in African Football

In the blood. . . Guinean-born Iya Traore is not your professional footballer in the conventional sense but as a Traore he sure has football genes, that's why he is the world champion of football freestyle!

This has been a Cup of Nations and more, despite the absence of the top guns who I am not going to bore you by mentioning by name. Apart from the heroics of both host nations, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, fancy and outrageous hairstyles, and heart-warming efforts by the likes of Libya and Sudan, there is also the question of nationality.

This aspect comes in different forms, namely:
(a) players who were born outside of Africa,
(b) the naturalization of players by Equatorial Guinea and
(c) the distribution of certain west African surnames across several national teams in competition.

Firstly, let’s look at point “c”, which was brought to my attention by a friend’s comment on the weekend while we were watching the Afcon games. He asked how come certain surnames appear in several national teams. Though he did not say, he was referring to some west African nations.

I had taken note of that point for all the years I have been following the Afcon but never bothered to take a closer inspection why surnames like Diallo or Keita appear in the team sheets of so many countries in west Africa. Diallo and other surnames like Ba (or Bah), Tall, Sow, Sy, Toure, Jallah, Konare and Niang all belong to the Fula (also known as Fulani). This group (or “nation”) is the most widely distributed ethnic group in Africa, stretching from the western coast countries such as Mauritania, Senegal and Gambia to the further east through Chad to Sudan. So in between – east to west, and north to south – the Fula are also found in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Benin, Togo, Cameroon and northern Nigeria.
Apart from Guinea, the Fula are a minority group in all other countries where they exist, despite their formidable presence in the national teams of those countries, as well as in other spheres of life, including the military and politics. In Nigeria, cultural and religious similarities (pastoralism and Islam) with the Hausa - that country’s and Africa’s largest ethnic group - have given the Fula the platform to be influential in the affairs of Nigeria.

The late Umaru Yar’ Adua, the previous president of Nigeria before the incumbent Goodluck Jonathan, was also a Fula. Other previous Fulani heads of state in Nigeria were Shehu Shagari  and General Muhamadu Buhari.  Other notable Fulas elsewhere are Thomas Sankara (former Burkina Faso president), Ahmadou Ahidjo (first president of Cameroon), Amadou Toumani Toure (Mali president), Minkailu Bah (Sierra Leone sports minister), Mariama Ba (Senegalese writer) and Baba Maal (Senegalese singer).

From African football point of view, it is of very deep significance that CAF president, Cameroonian Issa Hayatou, is a Fula, a people known for their fierce solidarity which defies international borders separating them. It is from this perspective that some punters try to find logic why countries like Mali and Burkina Faso held the Afcon ahead of countries with superior resources in largely Anglophone east and southern Africa. And, also why major CAF decisions and focus favour west and central Africa ahead of the rest, notably east and southern Africa, and why Hayatou has stayed in power for so long.

Hayatou has cunningly used patronage, and exploited African geopolitics either by singing from the Francophone hymn book or by appealing to cultural and religious ties mentioned above.

Meanwhile, another significant distribution of surnames across west Africa is those of Mandinka origin, whose distribution is also as widespread as Fula’s. Typical Mandinka surnames include Sidibe, Toure, Keita, Kouyate, Sissokho (or Cissoko), Diabate, Diawarra, Kone, Camara, and Cisse (or Sissay). And because Mandinka are descendants of the Mali Empire, they are closely related to the Bambara, Mali’s largest ethnic group. This also explains why Mandinka surnames are also found among the Bambara.

Though the Bambara people are not as widely distributed as the Fula and Mandinka, their language has significant numbers in Senegal, Mauritania, the Gambia, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Burkina Faso. This then explains the presence of typical Malian surnames such as Traore, Coulibaly and Diarra in the national teams of the countries mentioned above.

This 2012 Cup of Nations had been conspicuous for the shortage of Coulibaly players: Mali has two (defenders Ousmane and Idrissa Coulibaly), Ivory Coast  (midfielder Kafoumba Coulibaly), Burkina Faso (defender Paul Keba Koulibaly). There are eight Traores in four national teams: Abdou Razzak, Bertand and Alain (Burkina Faso); Mahamane, Abdou and Bekaye (Mali); Ibrahima (Guinea) and Armand (Senegal). The first seven are remarkably all midfielders while the 22-year-old Senegalese, who is attached to Queens Park Rangers, is a defender.

Finally, the debate around nationhood was raised to another level when Zambia’s French coach Herve Renard warned that Fifa must take keen interest in stamping unclear naturalisation processes. He was compelled to make the statement when he realised ahead of the match with Equatorial Guinea that the host nation had fielded starting XIs made up of players born in other countries.
Two or three naturalized players in a team – as it has been the norm with Senegal (this time via French-born Demba Ba) and others over the years – not bad; but the entire Eleven! I think there’s a point there to argue.