Avram Grant backs Africa to level up

Africa does not have a football talent shortcoming; its Achilles is what is around these gifted players, says Zambia head coach Avram Grant.

The former director of football and manager of flamboyant English club Chelsea believes the African continent has an abundance of talent, possibly more so than Europe. However, the setup of football in Africa is what stunts their growth.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 2023 Cosafa Cup in Durban, South Africa, Grant said African teams can consistently rival football’s leading nations at the Fifa World Cup if they address their shortcomings, like Morocco have done.
The Atlas Lions’ run to the Fifa World Cup semi final in Qatar last year was not a fluke, Grant says. They are reaping the rewards of a project put into action a decade ago to upgrade sport infrastructure, capacitate administrators and expose their athletes to high level training . 

“I’ll tell you what I said to [Fifa president Gianni] Infantino and [CAF president Patrice] Motsepe. If you improve things that can be improved in Africa, I can assure you that every World Cup, Africa will have a team in the semifinals,” said Grant who was in charge of Ghana from 2014 to 2017.

“Because, in Africa, there is no problem with talent. There’s a lot of talent everywhere. There’s passion and nice people who I enjoy dealing with. So, you have everything as a base to reach the [World Cup] semifinals and more than this. I’m not surprised that Morocco did it, I’m surprised that it didn’t happen before,” Grant said of the re-emergence of the North Africans as a force.
“It started with Cameroon in 1990 when they showed the world that Africa is good. Then in 1994 it was Nigeria. I was at the game when they lost to Italy [in the round of 16]. They were much better than Italy, but they miss the things that they have in Europe, education of sports.”

THINGS AROUND PLAYERS

To emulate Morocco’s success model, other nations must get backing from their governments, Grant says.
In 2014, the Moroccan government embarked on an ambitious N$2,7 billion three-year plan to develop regional training centres, create four new football academies and to renovate numerous stadiums across the country by replacing damaged grass fields with more durable turf surfaces.
“The most important thing in football is talent. But every lecture or consultation of mine starts with a saying that ‘nobody has enough talent to live on talent alone’. So, the things around [the talent] need to be improved,” Grant said.

“It’s on the right track, much better than it was ten years ago. But still, there’s a lot of gaps to fill.”

Recently, Brave Warriors head coach Collin Benjamin made a similar observation regarding the need to ensure that conditions around players need to be aligned with expectations.
“They’re doing their part. They’re fighting and arguing among each other, that means they want to achieve something,” Benjamin said of the mood in camp ahead of the decisive 2023 Africa Cup of Nations encounter against Burundi.
Both Burundi and Namibia are forced to play their home matches on foreign soil due substandard stadiums in their own backyards.
“It’s the stuff around them. They would want to play at home. If they do go to the Africa Nations Cup in Côte d’Ivoire next year, it would have been lovely to send them off with a friendly at the Independence Stadium [in WIndhoek]. But that’s not the case,” said Benjamin.
Grant, who qualified Zambia to a first Afcon finals appearance since 2015, has identified the pressing stumbling blocks of African football which require the most attention. 

“In Africa, the three things that I would improve are the quality of the pitches. It’s better in South Africa, but in other countries the quality of pitches are not good for top talent in Africa,” Grant said.
“There needs to be more education for the coaches and better salary for coaches so that it will be a fulltime job. I’m a member of the LMA [League Managers Association] organisation of coaches, this is the top in the world, and every two months we have a course, even online, to update what’s happening in the world,” the wily mentor continued. 

“Then, the backroom staff needs to be more high level. We need to give them more tools so that they can improve football, because good students come from good teachers,” Grant said.

COSAFA CONTRIBUTION

A competition like Cosafa partially helps improve standards in that regard. Grant was sufficiently impressed with the competition’s organisation and the quality of football on display.

“What I see I like because players need [to play] international football as much as they can. For the players that normally don’t play in the first team, the tournament is very good and gives a chance for players to be in the national team,” said Grant.

“Like for my country [Zambia] that is one of the reasons I am here. To see if they can play in the national team in the future.”

Grant delegated assistant coach Moses to oversee the Cosafa Cup campaign which saw the Chipolopolo retain the regional title after beating Lesotho in the final, for an unprecedented seventh regional championship crown.

“International experience is very important. Any tournament like this is good for that purpose. The quality was not bad at all. It’s not the quality of the first team for sure, but it is good,” he said.

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