Egyptian giants Al-Ahly became outright the most successful club in African Champions League history this weekend, drawing 2-2 in Cameroon against runners up Cotonsport Garoua to emerge 4-2 winners on aggregate. After a 2-0 win over the Cameroonians at the Cairo International Stadium two weeks ago Al-Ahly were overwhelming favourites to win the tie going into the second leg and they did just Click to continue reading...

Cotonsport Garoua were only founded twenty-two years ago but have come on leaps and bounds in African football during that short period and go into the final of the 2008 CAF African Champions League looking to make history by winning their first ever continental trophy. However the task at hand could hardly be more daunting given their opponents. Click to continue reading...

The remaining twenty teams in contention for a spot at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa learnt their fate yesterday, as the final group draw was made in Zurich. The teams were seeded based on their most recent FIFA World rankings and split into five groups of four. Teams will play each other twice, with group winners advancing to the party in South Africa in two years time. Click to continue reading...

Back in January we spent a month covering the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations on WCB. The three things I took away from this were: 1) African football is on the rise, 2) Manucho is a damn fine footballer, and 3) There's not nearly enough written about African football. What I mean by 3) is that [...] Click to continue reading...

Growing up as a football mad teenager, the weekly purchase of Guerin Sportivo was a must. The Italian magazine was cheap enough and, in any case, I could easily get the money for it off my parents with the excuse that it was helping me learn Italian.

But what made it such a must read in the eyes of a kid fed up with the banalities that proliferated what were roughly the English equivalents of Match and Shoot was the serious edge to its writing. Click to continue reading...

The following interview with Nigerian legend and captain of the national team Nwanko Kanu was conducted by African football magazine New African Soccer and reprinted here with their permission. The magazine is free to download. Nigeria went into the Beijing Olympics football tournament confident that they will do well. Click to continue reading...

I know, I know. I promised 31 straight days of posts and what happened?

Anyways, I'm here.
As you know, I also write for New African Soccer magazine.

What is that? According to the site:

New African Soccer Magazine is the only monthly English language magazine and ezine dedicated to African football. Click to continue reading...

Cause and effect. It's something we learned about as young kids.

Now, we get to see cause and effect in motion in the world of professional football.

The cause: The rise of African football, coupled with the advent and wide use of satellite teleivion.

The effect? Click to continue reading...

We talked about juju, the art of African witchcraft about a year ago on this blog.

Back then, we stated that

it has long been common for soccer teams to turn to witchcraft, or juju, to gain a competitive edge. Teams might, for example, summon witch doctors to cast spells on opposing teams.

Click to continue reading...

African football often gets pushed aside in the international footballing press.

It's either too foreign to most journalists or not interesting enough for their tastes.

That's one reason today's piece about the Al Ahly-Zamalek derby in the Guardian was such a pleasure to see. Click to continue reading...

Some news to read as you get arrested for bad dancing: Football relocation horror stories, with humor (Financial Times) BBC exposes African football conmen. (BBC News) Oguchi Onyewu is now officially Belgian. And missing. And Michael Bradley is expensive (Americans Abroad) An interview with the guy who was scored on by Thierry Henry in that Chinatown [. Click to continue reading...

I'm back from my travels in Spain and happy to see them doing so well in the European Cup.

But what struck me today after almost two weeks away was this interesting article about an alternative World Cup from today's Guardian.

According to the article, this cup, dubbed the Viva World Cup is 'an inter-national competition designed for countries that remain unrecognized by FIFA'. Click to continue reading...

Will the upsets in African football have an influence in the results for this region in this live online and radio commentary World Cup 2010 qualifier between Belize and Mexico live as the smaller home team try to create one of the biggest shocks in world football by beating a buoyant Mexican national team? Click to continue reading...

Photo credit: Ted.Alcorn on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion photo pool. Click to continue reading...

Photo credit: michael_hughes on Flickr, via the Pitch Invasion photo pool. Click to continue reading...