Olalekan Olatokunbo
It’s easy to do a traditional tournament preview. We can get into favourites, players to watch and the best kits, but let’s frame it differently. Let’s celebrate.
It’s a time for chaos and romance, a time to look at the beauty and complexity that is the African continent. For one month, 24 African countries go on a football pitch and try to conquer the continent. Billions of people on the continent and in the diaspora watch with eager eyes, not just for their country but for their rival to lose. Banter is key. So is heroism: Remember that time that Didier Drogba and his Ivoirian teammates used the Afcon stage to help stop a civil war?
The level of play is world class: from Victor Osimhen, Mohamed Salah, Azzedine Ounahi, and Mohammed Kudus to the red-hot Serhou Guirassy and Yankuba Minteh, there are tons of players who are at the very top of their game.
It is also thrillingly unpredictable. By the time you read this, the first round of the group stage has already taken place, and the second round will be well on its way. We expected host Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Morocco to win their opening matches, and they did, but who would have thought that tiny Cape Verde and Namibia could conquer heavyweights Ghana and Tunisia respectively?
These enter the annals of the other famous upsets in Afcon history, such as Madagascar beating Nigeria in 2019, Zambia beating Ghana in 2012 – and then winning the tournament – and Malawi beating Algeria in 2010.
You may complain that watching a match is not smooth or the gameplay isn’t the best, but that is the essence of it. Afcon is a celebration of us. And, like us, it is imperfectly perfect. For example, Côte d’Ivoire is hosting the tournament, but their second civil war ended just 13 years ago. Some of the countries in the tournament are younger than the competition itself.
Africa has a long history with colonialism, civil wars and oppression, among a host of many issues, and this tournament is a form of escape — a way to look forward to a hopeful future.
For a month, our history, our pain, our joy, is expressed on a football pitch.
“The music of Africa is a big sound: it’s the sound of a community,” the late great Fela Kuti once said. Nowhere is that sound louder than on the Afcon pitch.