Let me apologise that I shall be digressing a little from what has become the theme of the season – the African Cup of Nations. This weekend the champion team of Africa will emerge and by the time I am writing this now only one of the semi-final matches has been played so I cannot do a proper post-mortem. The second match is on and my deadline is now! I can also not do a preview of the finals because by the time you are reading this on Saturday the match between Egypt and Algeria would have been decided and whatever I say now would have been overtaken by events. Next weekend, therefore, I shall do an overview of the championship that has been full of surprising match results, some shocks and plenty of boring football! The giants of African football continue to dominate. None of the four finalists, Ghana, Algeria, Egypt and Nigeria, are minnows or unexpected newcomers to the apex of African football. Nigeria may have lost against Ghana but that is simply because the country had exhausted the stock of luck she took to Angola in the previous matches against Benin in the first round and against Zambia in the quarter-final. It would have been stretching the element of luck too far, and taking the elements for granted, if Nigeria had managed to maintain a monopoly of luck to the detriment of other countries. So, to get back to reality Nigeria had to lose gallantly but painfully on a night that they played fairly well, kept more possession of the ball and then ran out of ideas how to break down a hard fighting, younger, fitter, and more organised defence of an ordinary-looking Ghana Black Stars team. The Eagles ran out of options and players! Having said that I congratulate them for putting up a brave fight and for restoring some level of dignity to the country by not being eliminated in the first round of the African Cup of Nations.

The standard of the matches have been generally low. The four brand new stadia, truly magnificent architectural edifices. will remain legacies of the championship. Another possible drawback is the issue of the turfs, particularly the one in Luanda. If only as much attention was paid to the grassing of the fields as was paid to the construction of the world-class structures the quality of football may have been better. As a result, the poor grounds produced some poor games. What also did not help matters is that the teams that had all, or most of their players based in Europe, had very little time to develop a proper well-oiled team before the championship and so did not produce great team performances. I failed to catch any truly outstanding star from the championship in my web. I saw the occasional glimpses of brilliance but even those moments were too brief and to far in between to leave a lasting memory. The great African Stars, for one reason or the other, have failed to shine - Drogba, Essien, Kanoute, Diara, Sisoko, Keita, Taiwo, Traore, Mikel, Martins, Eto, all did not light up the championship.

Osaze Odenwingie provided some magic through his endless running, but got too pressurised with the deputising responsibility placed on him. He needed to put up a super performance every time. Ironically, the further the championship went and people’s expectations grew, the worse his performance became. He it was that initially never shied away from taking defenders on, and running down the flanks. Perhaps the finals would ignite the sparks that they rest of the championship has failed to do up till then. We have to wait until this weekend to find out!

Once again I do not know what to make of the Super Eagles. The team obviously has not been playing well and up to their previous levels, even though the team won many of their matches as would be expected. That is the crux of the matter. In African football the gulf between Nigeria and most other countries (except a handful) is so wide that any day, any time and anywhere Nigerians would never accept that their national team can lose against some countries. That has been proven again in this championship. In African football the difference between the ‘boys’ and the ‘men’ is so clear! So the Eagles have arrived at their third-place match terminus playing at half-strength! That should serve as a lesson reminder to all Nigerians that their darling team, when fully ready, is capable of truly great things in world football.