January 16, (THEWILL) – After 12 matches of the ongoing TotalEnergies 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), the showpiece of African football has earned itself the inevitable connotation of suffering from a Goal Drought. The tournament, which began with a brace by Cameroon captain Vincent Aboubakar, seemed to promise a generous serving of multiple goal-scoring results but the subsequent games that followed the opener between Cameroon and Burkina Faso did not live up to that billing in the first round is matches. As at Wednesday, January 12, as many as nine fixtures had only managed to witness lone goal results, with a third of them being via penalty kicks. This head-scratching circumstance has left many football fans on the continent, and even match analysts on the review programmes asking where the goals have gone.
The excitement of the round leather game is not entirely dependent on goals but as every ardent football fan will admit, there is no shortage of excitement and rush of adrenaline when goals are involved. Not just one, but multiple goals that leave supporters at the edge of their seats, biting their fingers, mimicking striking opportunities with air kicks and holding their hands to their heads at missed chances or letting go of all inhibitions in celebrating goals scored. Goals definitely spice the game. In fact, by this stage at the most recent AFCON, when Egypt hosted the continent three years ago in an expanded format that increased the number of participating teams from 16 to the current 24, there were 27 goals already accounted for and celebrated, as compared to the measly 12 so far recorded in the Cameroon tournament.
There are easy pointers as to why the Goal Drought has persisted across the first round of Group stage football and it is still early days with so much football left to play. Yet, it is tellingly noteworthy that many of the top talents, predicted to set the continent ablaze with the same vigour that have made them highly indispensable for their foreign clubs, seemed to be like fish out of water, removed as they were from the regular settings of club football. The dour opening game of Egypt’s Mohamed Salah, who was inhibited by the Super Eagles, the ineffective play of Ghana’s Thomas Partey in their loss to Morocco, the slim victory of AFCON favourites Senegal that required a very fortunate and late Sadio Mane penalty, the 1-0 victory of Naby Keita’s Guinea against Malawi and the stalemate of the defending champions Algeria, with Riyad Mahrez and Said Benrahma against the less-rated Sierra Leone are but a few examples of the first round results not living up to their initial billings based to the quality on paper.
There are arguments hinged on the fact that there was very little bonding time between squad members ahead of their opening games. This is said to have impacted heavily on cohesion and team play. Whatever the teams produced as performance in these first matches could therefore be said to have relied mostly on the individual capacities of the players than on executing any sort of tactical infusion from the bench. As arguably tenable as this line of reasoning may be in excusing the uninspiring displays of some big names while some playing in their very first AFCON impressed, the conclusion is that, given more time to practice and train together under the tactical nous of their coaching crew, linking play will improve, understanding between the players will show and the keepers will begin to pick more balls out of their nets than they did in the first 12 fixtures.
For this optimistic outcome, the maiden tournament-wide employment of video assistant referee (VAR) will play a most significant role. As a system that applies video footage and headphone communication to assist the match officials and head referee examine decisions made so as to reduce human errors that can bear a significant impact on match results, it has been a welcome development for football match officiating. Many a football player had perfected the art of simulation to fool unassisted referees into awarding free-kicks, penalty kicks, yellow and red cards when the reality of the play did not actually warrant any of those as replays often revealed. It was to curtail the human errors that inevitably creeped into significant and result-altering refereeing decisions that formed part of the rationale for the introduction of VAR.
The technology has been applied accordingly from the very first match as reflected in the pair of penalties that Aboubakar netted against Burkina Faso. Both times, the referee consulted with the VAR team and, arguably, made the right call. Apart from the penalty calls, other refereeing decisions were as correct as the technology allowed. To a considerable extent, VAR use in the continental competition has been sans some of the egregious calls that have characterised its application in Europe, especially in the English Premier League that have played to the tribal sentiments of fans to claim bias against their clubs to the point of calling for the scrapping of VAR. At AFCON, common sense application of VAR, as applied in the Ivory Coast versus Equatorial Guinea tie, where when a blatant, inadvertent handball in the box was overruled likely due to no imminent danger or advantage created, has helped to advance the benefits of the technology.
What has not helped, however, is a blatant refusal to employ the benefits that the system brings to the game coupled with an intransigence to stick to error-strewn calls in refereeing decisions and game management. Yet, this was exactly what Zambian referee Janny Sikazwe did in his handling, or mishandling, of the AFCON first round fixture between Mali and Tunisia, which the Malians won by a lone goal. Sikazwe had begun by overseeing a penalty each for both sides, with one being a debatable call and the other forced upon him by VAR after he had wrongly called for a free kick. But, the worst decision he made was one that will be remembered for infamy when he blew the game over in the 85th minute, first, and when he was made to realise his error and the game resumed, he still blew the final whistle with 10 seconds of regulation time left just as the assistant referee with the time board was preparing to display the extra time allotted, due to drink-breaks and other delays in the second half. There was also the harsh red card shown to Mali forward El Bilal Toure without recourse to VAR.
The ignominious refereeing, particularly distasteful for the wanton disregard of the assistive technology, constituted a pale reminder that in the end, no matter how effective the technology, it will rise and fall on how optimally employed the human beings who operate it apply it. The Tunisian coach, Mondher Kebaier, could have been speaking for the majority of those who witnessed the ensuing embarrassment when he reacted by describing the bizarre refereeing of Sikazwe as outrightly “inexplicable”. This was made even worse so when match officials determined that the remaining time for the fixture should be played, 40 whole minutes after the controversial “final whistle”. While the Malians returned, the Tunisians, who claimed they were already taking post-match ice baths, did not and, for the third time, the Zambian referee, Sikazwe, blew the match over.
The turn of events and complaints led to the opening of an investigation. On Thursday, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) confirmed that it was probing the circumstances of the farcical and controversial scenes of the tie. In his defense, Sikazwe, whose officiating experience includes having officiated at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, was taken to hospital after the game. Early reports claim that he lost focus due to the effects of heatstroke and dehydration he suffered while handling the game management duties of a centre referee. Yet, rather than die doing the job, the professional that he was, he ought to have called attention to his condition and taken immediate precautions rather than persist in his duties to the point of heatstroke, dehydration, poor officiating, a massive dent on his reputation and a CAF investigation.
The Confederation issued a statement on Thursday that read: “In relation to the TotalEnergies Africa Cup of Nations match between Tunisia and Mali played in Limbe on 12 January 2022, CAF is gathering all the necessary reports from the officials at the match. CAF is forwarding these documents to the competent bodies of CAF. At this stage, CAF is not in a position to make further comment until the responsible bodies indicate the way forward.” That will not look pretty on Sikazwe’s record however the investigation ends.
The controversy aside, there have been a lot of positives about the competition. In the grand scheme of things, fears of massive COVID-19 outbreaks have not manifested and CAF has worked together with the Local Organising Committee to enforce strict health and safety protocols to avoid viral infections. Furthermore, the quality of the infrastructure has been matched by the quality of the transmission as well. Both have received very high marks and have seen Cameroon taking plaudits for the organisation of the competition. There had been an incident of theft at knife-point against some journalists covering the competition among threats from armed, militant separatists West of Cameroon but, by and large, the security arrangements have held as promised by CAF and the government.
There is still so much football to play and Nigeria’s odds as title contenders was vastly improved by the decidedly proper display against the Salah-led Pharaohs of Egypt. With the expected improvements that will result from stronger bonding and more trainings together, the Super Eagles, under caretaker coach Augustine Eguavoen, are expected to claim Group D and make their path towards the 2021 AFCON trophy less cumbersome. Hopefully.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
