📅 Published on: 2024-12-23 16:22:41
⏱ Duration: 00:30:05 (1805 seconds)
👀 Views: 1063 | 👍 Likes: 72
📝 Video Description:
In this episode of the African Five-a-side podcast, we review all of the happenings of the African football calendar in the year of 2024 and take a quick peek at what is to come in 2025.
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🕵️♂️ Transcript:
well I’m sure like many of you I can’t believe that the year is almost over um but with the last episode of the African faside podcast for the calendar year of 2024 I thought what better time to take a step back and to recap everything that’s happened over the last 12 months all of that and more next on the African football Roundup on the African fide [Music] podcast welcome back to another episode of the African football Roundup on the African fide podcast my name is mAh Z I’m your host and this podcast continues to be uh not going to say sponsored supported by Africa’s a country.com if you haven’t heard of Africa a country.com if you haven’t checked them out yet I’m going to post a few links to some recent articles uh down in the description below we’re also on a publishing break for africaa country.com so there won’t be any more new articles uh but you can go back to the archive of all of 2024 we’ve published some fantastic journalism uh over the last 12 months and most recent L uh an article uh by zahi about a um Algerian divers that are working to fix the Algerian uh seabed by installing artificial reefs an article that I found uh pretty interesting um but yeah without further Ado let’s talk about African football in the calendar year of 2024 um and it really started back in January with with the African Cup of Nations uh in the Ivory Coast in KTIV that’s a tournament that I covered that was really the beginning stages of this channel um and that’s when many of you started to subscribe for the very first time as we were doing daily afcon Diaries recapping the day’s action uh on YouTube here on this channel as I was thinking back about that afcon I was thinking what exactly were the main lessons what do I take away from those 5 weeks of of unparalleled action un beautiful football um for me the first thing that I took away was that the entertainment value of this tournament remains unmatched you can talk about you know the World Cup and how great it is and it is great especially the last one in Q I thought was spectacular for this entertainment value in particular you can talk about the European championships I think not as entertaining uh you could talk about cup Med talk about all these Flagship you know tournaments that we have in World football I just don’t think anything comes close to the afcon um perhaps the World Cup but I I don’t think anything else the amount of first of all when you speak to somebody that’s you know a journalist that’s covering this from the very first time especially if they’re not from the African continent the first thing that they’ll say is that the color shocks them when they’re watching you know and I always talk to like foreign media outlets and they’ll say oh wow like it’s so colorful you know like they’ll see the color of the supporters the color of the shirts um everything is colorful and they they like that you know everything Pops to the eye um not to mention the different kind of atmosphere that you get in the stand mostly joyous the hilarious moments that you get on and off the pitch you could just have to you could just look on social media for um a collection of memes from the 2024 uh 2023 African Cup of Nations played in 20 24 and you you’re just not going to stop laughing for probably 10 minutes and it’s the same thing every single two years um and then the story lines too of the winners and I sat back and I thought okay who are the winners over the last 10 years last decade and What’s the storyline kivir won this year what a story they’re hosting it at home first time in a very long time couple decades um they’re almost eliminated in the group stages their coaches fired in the middle of the group stages they hire the assistant coach they barely make it through the skin of their teeth into the group stages and they end up winning that tournament great story 2021 in Cameroon Sagal wins their first tournament of any kind uh ever and then all of a sudden the floodgates open up and it’s like what a story that is as well in the year that you know Papa buo passed away and all his teammates his former teammates are parts of you know the staff of LCA I thought that was a really powerful heartwarming story 2019 Algeria wins playing great football in Egypt in the middle of political turmoil and players saying that they want to win you know the afcon for people at home who are you know demonstrating and protesting uh with the greatest of manners um The Smiling Revolution as some people called it great story 2017 Kim run has seven or eight players withdraw from the afcon prior to prior to the the tournament starting and then they go on to win the thing not playing great football but with under with Hugo Bruce at the home they go on to win the tournament with all those players defecting at the very last minute and that’s also around the time I believe that they have the anglophone frankophone crisis for the first time in a long time it’s starting to flare up and so they also want to win it for the people back home and then 2015 the golden generation of kir that you know qualified to World Cups won so many African players of the year um you know we loved watching them European leagues but they finally get that afcan trophy uh before they you know slowly not going to say wither away or dissolve away but but before the there’s a revolution in uh I mean in the literal spinning sense and there’s a new group of players that arrived for isz so again that’s just the last 10 years it feels like every single winner has a very strong powerful story that’s not considering you know what happened in 2012 with Zambia that’s not considering it’s for me it’s non-stop enter entainment and there’s it goes further than just haha entertainment which can be superficial at times you know like a Meme here and there oh look at this Uncle trying to talk to the Ceno young girl no it can also be like real deep spiritual meanings you know for these players for these nations a senales supporter winning in 2021 all of a sudden Puffs out their chest and all of a sudden senagal starts winning Beach soccer footall under 20 under 17 African nations Championship that’s not a coincidence Sagal never won anything before that the mental block that sort of an entire nation had lifted because the Men’s National Team goes out and wins an afcon you can’t write that so that’s what I what I thought about the most that’s my main takeaway that the afcon remains in my opinion in my opinion the greatest tournament in World football I’m biased I I admit that I’m biased but even for somebody that isn’t biased you cannot deny the entertainment value of you cannot deny the human interest value of that tournament it’s unlike any other and it’s must CV the second thing that it took away from that entire experience in cir was I thought kivir was a perfect host in that you have to understand I come from Algeria I come from North Africa and Algeria is again I’m biased again but I think you know one of the most beautiful countries Algeria in particular is I think one of the most beautiful cities that I’ve been to uh that I’ve lived in um I love my country but my country is closed off you know with the exception of neighbors so Tunisia you’ll have some tunisians they don’t really come to Algeria too much but they can come in without a Visa you’ll see the Middle East Algeria sometimes you’ll see some Malian students you’ll see some people from ner as well um a few from morania maybe you don’t see any Moroccans cuz I mean you see definitely see some Rockets I take that back uh but the since The Border’s closed you don’t get as much spill over uh like people going over there or coming over um but that’s all you see really is people from the surrounding countries when we were in kiv and we would go to neighborhoods like trashville where the media center was and you walk through the neighborhoods and you see these huge communities from all over the continent Sagal Bina Faso Mali uh Guinea not even countries that are just like bordering kivir even countries that further away you know either in West Africa or Central Africa um that was beautiful to me and you know one thing that I don’t like I say about my country is like I find it to be a little bit closed off and so I remember I moved to Mar like just for a short period of time in 2022 and 2023 and I remember seeing these Elder gentlemen wearing a gold cap they ended up being korans I mean I could tell they were korans but I was like what is that gold cap you know and I had to Google it and I see that it’s something that you know korans wear it’s a symbol a status of symbol it’s a religious uh article of clothing as well it’s something that I would never have discovered in Algeria because like I said you only get people from neighboring countries and so I sometimes it bothered me that I’d have to go to Europe or Canada or whatever to discover more about African communities than when I’m in Africa um but that wasn’t the case in C in C you could meet people from all over the place and it really had that like in French they’ll say ter you know like welcoming land feel to it and that’s why I I really really loved it and I’m curious to see who are the next hosts that are going to have that kind of atmosphere you know um maybe Rwanda where there’s visa fee travel Sagal has Visa free travel I believe for all African countries or visa on arrival uh I think East Africa has the East African Community which is Visa free between them so I’m I’m assuming there’s a lot of population um movement around there as well maybe EAS because I know that’s also probably supposed to be a Visa free zone as well so maybe like in Nigeria Orana these are all things that I’m looking forward to discovering in the future but I I I loved K because of that in particular that was my one experience on the African continent where I saw many different Africans from all over the place and I think as a continent we probably all have to do a little bit better uh with things like Visa free travel for for all Africans moving away from the afcon after the afcon we had The Knockout stages of the calf Champions League um the calf champions league for me the main lessons that it took away from last season was that this tournament Awards good defense the top goal scorer only had four goals throughout the entire tournament and he was well he was transferred I think halfway through the tournament in January um from aak Mimosa Koko Soro his name was uh but the teams that were defended well they’re the ones that did well it’s a little less so the case this year as you know as three match days have passed by I’ve looked at the the tables the standings there are some countries that have conceded I believe pyramids have conceded three goals for example they’re still in a good place um I think MC of Alger conceded two goals there’s a few another team that conceded more than three or more goals and they’re still in second place as well so it’s not necessarily the case this time around but last year that was the case and not only were the teams that defend that defend well not only were they rewarded I would even I don’t like using the term negative football but teams that set out to spoil the opposition’s construction of the game I would say were rewarded so we saw um we saw that especially with espon AIS versus mamod Sundance in the semi-finals I thought ESP Bron were not interested in building anything at all but they just were ready to pounce whenever they got a half opportunity um I thought for example TP mmbe were were punished for being you know for attacking I’ll be it recklessly but they were attacking it Non-Stop and they were being punished for that as well so that was sort of my Takeaway on the pitch off the pitch I went to the final in Tunis um and I hung out with Ali visiting support which I you should know by now if you don’t know by now you can go on Africa a country’s YouTube page and watch the documentary I did on that but it was really cool to see how there’s an a away days culture that’s starting to form on the African continent and not just the elepant especially this is especially the case in North Africa but as you’re starting to get like these organized supporter groups these ultas they’re starting to travel a lot like we saw when Sundowns were playing against Raja Raja sent it’s not huge numbers maybe 100 maybe 200 uh people in South Africa but it’s not necessarily people living in South Africa people are paying money and you know how expensive it is to travel inria afca um and they’re heading down and they’re discovering the continent and you know speaking to those Ali supporters they were talking about the times they went to Tanzania The Times They went to Congo The Times They went to Sagal not just North Africa you know and and how these experiences changed them sort of as a supporters group that was really cool to see as well and I love the fact that this is you know something that’s happening now um again Visa visas are a little bit issues sometimes you know because if you have an away day where ticket prices are not exorbitant and there’s no Visa that’s when you’ll get a lot of visiting support but that’s not always the case in this tournament unfortunately but that AES culture that’s starting to form is something that I’m paying attention to and I really really love and finally my last takeaway from last year’s tournament was Al’s insatiable appetite um it was I I knew about it before but then when you’re there and you’re talking to the supporters and you’re listening to the players and you’re listening to the coach say yeah we won or yeah we drew but we’re not happy we want to win again and again and again and again we want to win every single minute of every single game it’s it’s impressive when you’re when you see it in person it’s really really impressive and that’s something that I think I got to experience again with with the supporters you know hanging out with them at dinner and I’m interested in talking about you know like the other matches in the calf Champions League and they’re looking at their phone because is playing against zik and I think it was handball or volleyball or something like that and they just they don’t even like handball or volleyball but they just want to win everything all the time that was something again that was impressive to see in person then we head over into the summer in the summer we had the Olympic Games I think batswana emerged you know as an Athletics Powerhouse which was really cool but I’m not going to talk about other sports um don’t think I have the cache to to be honest but one thing that was related to football was the summer transfer window um there’s a few things that I would say about the summer transfer window um first of all I thought it was a little bit troubling that no African Stars got big money moves why did I think it was troubling I think it was troubling because I think this is a trend that’s going to continue in the future as clubs start to you know become hyper detailed when it comes to Recruitment and they take every single little thing into context the fact that players and I’m not the fact that players go away for afcon I think is what’s really hurting um you know African players I’m not making an argument for afcon going to summer I’m not making an argument for afcon being switched to every four years not at all I just don’t think it’s a coincidence that the most detail oriented coaches like Mikel tetar Pep Guardiola don’t have any Africans in their team with the exception of Thomas parte that’s just my opinion you know um these clubs you know like those two Napoli Leon these are all notorious clubs for trying to put pressure on their African players to either not go to afcon or they just decide not to recruit those players in in general so Victor oan should have gone to you know a Paris sanj should have gone to a big club and I I thought it was troubling that he couldn’t get that done now I’m not familiar with all of the ins and outs of that summer Saga the victor oan one I’m sure you know maybe if his team was a little more flexible maybe if he was a little more flexible maybe he could have got another move somewhere else in Europe not Galatasaray for maybe not 100 million but maybe a little bit less than that but I think Napoli were also being very inflexible as well but I’m just saying this is a bigger Trend because if you look besides OS man who were the main transfers siru gasi scores a goal a game and he’s only transferred I think for 10 15 million something like that and I understand it was the only season that he was performing at that level but I hate when people say if that was a Brazilian but it’s true if that was a Brazilian you would have gone for 30 or 40 or 50 or Portuguese player probably times three um ner mazwi now I think he left Bayern Munich maybe some the rumors are for political reasons as well but Lu Mai is worth more than 10 15 million you know it’s not to say that there’s a a a decrease in African players moving to Europe because you get a lot of young talented players yanba from The Gambia going to Brighton seone going from uh the continent to Manchester United shedi Riyad going from real batist to Crystal Palace but they they stay in that range you know 5 10 15 maximum 20 million there’s a lot a lot of cases like that but they stay in that range I don’t think that European clubs are willing to spend that much top European clubs are willing to spend that much on African players anymore I simply don’t now in the Gulf they might in Saud Arabia in UAE in Qatar maybe they will Qatar doesn’t that’s not really the strategy but maybe in Saudi Arabia they will I’m just not sure they will in Europe anymore and that’s something that I find a little bit troubling but at the same time I care about afan more than I care about transfer fees so this summer or even maybe this winter as well let’s keep an eye on Omar marush from inra Frankfurt the way he’s produced over the last two years he absolutely deserves a big money move no less than 50 million let’s keep it adola lman the way he’s performed over the last two years same thing let’s keep an eye on Brian Mumu from brenford look say if he was a Brazilian but you know rardon Play Had A Few Good Seasons and then they they sold them for 50 million but Anda has been having very very good seasons for at least two three years now I understand he’s had injury he’s missed time for afcon but again I just think there’s a there’s not the exact same uh but I think we all know that anyways that’s football you know some players from other certain countries are worth more than other players from other countries that’s unfortunately the case this summer we also uh actually I’m going talk about the summer next what else did we have uh in review we had uh in the fall we had afcon qualifying afcon qualifying I did a longer video that we sort of talked about all 24 teams that qualified and you can check that out on this channel if you’d like but if not um look I just said Sagal Morocco quivar are who we thought they were these are the three main favorites in my opin opinion Morocco because they’re hosting but not just that also because they have the best player best players on the continent they have the best squad on the continent uh alongside Sagal Sagle breeed through qualifying despite the fact that their coach left halfway through the coach that was there for nearly a decade and kok um reigning Champions and they only dropped two matches when qualification was already pretty much tied up so uh again they were like sort of experimenting using a lot of different players it’s a little bit of a worrying sign so I’ll put them a little bit under Sagal and Morocco but they’re still in those top three as well Algeria Egypt and Cameroon are cooking silently but for me they might be deadly coming up so they also had very very good qualifying campaigns sometimes with a little bit of drama um particularly in Cameroon but what they showed on the pitch was was impressive I think that there are big questions surrounding Tunisia especially at the Federation level and what they put on the pitch Nigeria particularly just with the coaching appointments they need to get that in order in my opinion uh Burkina Faso lost matches that they shouldn’t have lost to even though it was late in the qualifying campaign and Mali I think they’ve answered a lot of those questions under Tom sfed but we could also throw them in this category as well um just two more things that I took away from afcan qualifying that took place between September October and November of this year uh Dr Congo Angola South Africa and kro so that they are not flukes the Congo Angola and South Africa did it by keeping the stability they kept their national team coaches they um and even practically the same players as well and they just kept that consistency of their impressive performances at the afcon at the afcon you sort of see that and you say okay can we take anything away from this going forward because if you look at for example morania or Cape verd they had great afcons as well but they didn’t follow it up with consistent qualifying results whereas Dr cono and goola South Africa they did and so because they did we have to say this what they did at the afcon was not a fluke many of them are also doing very well in World Cup qualifiers and yeah what they did during the afcon qualifiers was nothing short of spectacular and Kos Kos were not a afcon but what they’ve shown in terms of progress over the last four or five years they’ve just confirmed with a great afcon qualifying campaign and uh what they’re doing in the World Cup qualifying as well so those four teams I think are going to be a problem in Morocco uh uh and my last takeaway is that we didn’t have any newbies usually we have you know one or two Nations uh that are making their debut at the afcon I was thinking it might have been Central African Republic this time around but uh it’s not the case um and so hey no no newcomers for the afcon qualifying that was my final takea away from that um yeah that’s pretty much the year in your review for Me overall I thought it was little bit of a boring calf Champions League I thought it was a great afcon maybe the best con of my lifetime that I can remember calf Champions League was a little bit boring but I was just fascinated by the supporting culture the supporters culture and I was fascinated by the mental aspect of winning those matches not necessarily the football on the pitch uh the summer was for me I was mostly focusing on the Olympics but we’re not talking about the Olympics today so with Summer transfers I thought it was a little bit of a disappointing summer overall um but I think you know there many impressive uh young African players in Europe that I think will be stars and will hopefully make big money moves but I’m not confident in that in the future and then uh afcon qualifying was great and yeah I gave my opinions on that but the problem is that the afcon takes place you know more than a year later so so much is going to change uh probably over the next year uh before the afcon begins which by the way the afcon begins in less than a year now so uh Happy uh less than Oney Year afon Day to all of you what we look forward to in 2025 the first thing is the African nations Championship uh it’s supposed to take place in I believe February uh will Kenya be ready there’s not a lot of confidence that Kenya will be ready people are saying that they might have to withdraw his host some people are saying Rwanda might step in as an emergency measure I don’t know that’s something to keep an eye on number two what will the competition look like as only I believe Morocco from North Africa are going to be participating but I’m I’m not even 100% sure about that I think they might even be sending like an under 23 side or something like that Tunisia withdrew Libya withdrew Egypt withdrew Algeria withdrew um what’s the future of the African nations Championship good question thanks uh the calf Champions League what is the future of the calf inter clubs competitions because initially we thought maybe with the African Football League there might be a change to you know these in Continental competitions but that’s gone away we’re always asking questions about how can we improve the calf Champions League in the conf Federation cup I think in the next one or two years we might see a change to the calf interclub competition formats but how what’s that going to look like I don’t know yet as for the actual calf Champions League this season will it be the same old teams that make it to the final Tunis or will we see new faces like Al or Orlando Pirates these are questions that I’m asking myself about the future uh will Africans in Europe continue to have a big year Omar marmo Muhammad Salah Adam lman sirasi Amad zalo at Manchester United Ray and a NRI had a little bit of a tough season at wolves but I think he’s going to Blossom and and really make the big money move hopefully um maybe in January or in the summer as well even though wolves are struggling these are all in my opinion you know players that can be world class Salah obviously is already world class and and um but the rest of them I mean they’re they’re on the edge and they’re I mean look at how the way Ahad dialo is taken uh Everyone by storm at Manchester United nothing short of impressive so will they continue to have that kind of Big Year in Europe something to watch um who will qualify for the World Cup next year we’re going to know by the end of next year in 12 months um there’s nine and a half teams coming from Africa is that good for the continent how are we going I think personally I think this is going to be some I think we’re going to be much more influential at the World Cup as a result of this because I’ve said this from over the last 5 10 years if you look at the top 10 teams in Africa there’s very very little that separates them take four of the North African teams Egypt Tunisia Algeria Morocco that’s four you can add the West African teams Sagal Nigeria Ghana cir that’s eight already throw in uh South Africa that’s nine throw in Mali that’s 10 I know I’m forgetting teams but you could maybe throw in a Dr Congo as well there’s very in my opinion very little that separates all of those sides from one another so we’re going to be continuing to put like I most recently we’ve been putting approximately two teams in The Knockout stages so if you double logically we should be putting in four teams in The Knockout stages four five teams if we put four or five teams in The Knockout stages I think that increases our chances of you know making it deeper into the tournament whether it’s the round of 32 uh or sorry round of 16 um quarterfinals or even hopefully the semi-finals again so that’s something to keep an eye on I think personally Africa is going to raise a lot of eyebrows in the United States of America and in North America and then finally we’re going to finish next year with the African Cup of Nations and Morocco what’s that going to look like we spent a lot of time talking about the afcon qualifiers and you know making theories about what it’s going to look like but we really don’t know because it was so far away you know so much can change in 12 months so um definitely going to be there um I’m looking forward to covering my my fifth afcon W it’s a milestone one for me so my fifth afcon um and yeah if it can be half of what it was in kivar then it’s going to be a great tournament so anyways uh thank you for tuning in to the last episode of the year of the African five aside podcast just wanted to do a year in review let me know what your best moments from the year were uh um what were your worst moments what were your best moments what are you looking forward to next year um so I I will be um recapping I’ll be back when I recap match day four of the CF Champions League which is going to be on January 4th it might be a little bit of a short one because I’m going to be in Qatar going to be covering the French super cup uh on January 5th inshallah between PSG and Monaco in Qatar so I’m going to be traveling it’s going to be a whole different setup um I’m but I’m going to make sure I watch those matches and comment on them and then we’re going to be off and running for the new year until then have yourselves you know if you celebrate Christmas having you know a nice Christmas uh enjoy the break with your families if you don’t celebrate uh enjoy the end of the New Year make your New Year’s resolutions and uh yeah let’s hit 2025 uh at a very high speed all right thank you for watching thank you this channel has grown so much over the year just wishing you all nothing but well wishes but uh if you want to finish the year off right by me do give me a thumbs up do uh do the five star rating on the audio platforms leave a comment um please please please subscribe share this podcast with a friend 2025 2024 for me was the year where you know I just I was struggling with consistency but I managed to do consistent at least once a week podcast so 2025 for me is the year where we’re going to take it to another level in terms of quality audio quality the kinds of videos we’re going to make not just me talking to a computer but it’s going to be you know um like mini documentaries uh sometimes it can to be very well produced podcasts with visuals that’s my plan for 2025 I have a lot of ambition and with your help I think we’re going to make this uh podcast go places so thank you all and I’ll speak to you probably in around 10 days uh unless there’s some kind of an emergency or breaking news in African football till then see you soon speak speak soon peace
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