Joseph-Antoine Bell Says 10 African Teams Face 2022 World Cup Test
Ten African teams will take part in the first 48-nation 2022 world cup finals tournament, giving the continent its biggest ever presence on the game’s biggest stage. Morocco’s run to the semi-final in Qatar has become the standard the rest will be judged against.
Joseph-Antoine Bell said Morocco are Africa’s best chance at the tournament and argued that the target should not stop at a good run. He said the continent’s team has to think bigger, with Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire and perhaps Egypt also in the mix.
Morocco Sets the Standard
Bell called Morocco the real leaders in African football. The former Cameroon goalkeeper said they are the continent’s best chance at this World Cup, then pushed the ambition further with a harder message about the level now required.
“But we need to remind all of them that going beyond the first round can no longer be the target, because the first round, when there are 48 teams, is not the same as when we had 32 teams. The target is winning [the World Cup], and the distance [to the trophy] is no longer the same,” he said.
The expanded format gives Africa 10 places in the finals, with Algeria, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia set to represent the continent this summer. Cameroon and Nigeria, two of the region’s biggest names, are absent.
Bell’s World Cup Benchmark
Bell’s view comes from someone who has lived African World Cup history from the inside. He was in Cameroon’s squads in 1982, 1990 and 1994, and he pointed back to the team that beat Diego Maradona’s Argentina in the opening game of the 1990 tournament before losing 3-2 to England in the quarter-final.
His warning was blunt. “Our football is not really improving … we don’t challenge ourselves to be excellent,” he said, adding that Africa is not short of players. “Before the 1960s, Africa already had good players in Europe, which means that we are not lacking players. What have we won at the World Cup? Now that the tournament has been increased to 48 teams, we are dull enough to think we have more chances to win?”
Bell also noted that some people had said an African team would win because the World Cup was being staged in Africa in 2010. That hope never turned into the title he believes the continent should be chasing.
Senegal and Africa’s Road
Senegal arrives with its own off-field warning sign. Head coach Pape Thiaw initially refused to board the plane in Dakar taking the team to the World Cup after the federation failed to pay several months’ wages, and he had been working without a contract since it expired after he led Senegal to the Africa Cup of Nations final in January.
The Senegalese government stepped in at the last minute to resolve the impasse. For Bell, that kind of disruption sits alongside the bigger challenge: turning more African places at the finals into a real threat for the trophy, not just another set of appearances.
