Which Afcon coach will suffer from poisoned chalice?

The decision of the Senegalese Football Federation to fire national coach Amara Traore confirmed the long held belief that the African Nations Cup is a poisoned chalice. There is never a busier period where national coaches across the continent get fired than during or just after the biennial tournament.

Traore qualified for the tournament in style, condemning Cameroon to watching the tournament from Yaounde. But his super stars failed him when it mattered. Senegalese supporters claim his lack of technical abilities were exposed here as the Teranda Lions crashed in the group stages after losing all their three matches to pack their bags and, with tails between their legs, headed to Dakar.

Although the Senegalese arrived in Equatorial Guinea with huge reputations as the most lethal strike force among all the competing teams, Demba Ba, Pappiss Cisse, Mousa Sow and Mamadou Niang all flopped at Africa's showpiece and a bitter pill to swallows for most Senegalese has been Cisse and Ba's instant discovery of their shooting boots as soon as they arrived at Newcastle United.

It further raises the question whether some African players are putting enough effort when competing at the African Nations Cup. Some people claim the lack of proper incentives at this tournament where the winners are alleged to be taking home US$1.2-m does not inspire confidence and most players are not willing to break a leg for that kind of pittance.

There are others who claim that money should not be the objective here and that players should be conscious of their national pride and fight for their national flag. But in this age of commercialism, where CAF for instance enjoys huge financial backing from giant global corporations like Pepsi, MTN, Samsung, Nasuba, Stanbic, Diritos, IFD-Kapital, Orange to mention just a few, are the players mercenaries in demanding decent payment to participate or are they justified?

Anyway, back to the coaches, a said earlier that the Cup of Nations is a rough period for coaches. Many suffer from stress and operate with the knowledge that their jobs could be terminated even if they had done reasonably well. Take for instance the former Zambian coach Dario Bonetti who qualified the team but still bit the bullet nonetheless! Although I was under the impression that qualifying was one of the criteria required in holding his position, it turned out that some people felt Zambia were not playing attractive football or to be quite blunt, they were unconvincing!

Little wonder many coaches are confused! South Africa, Cameroon and Nigeria played attractive football, but failed to make the cut. Even Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana, they have both played attractive football in the past, but have since abandoned it and focussing on effective football. That is, smash and grab, winning football and to hell with those whining that their football is ugly, as long as they are winning!

Roland Courbis led Niger to their first ever Cup of Nations. They were never disgraced and personally I think they performed admirably. Admittedly, they were shocking in their opening match and hardly gave the impression of a team worthy of competing at this level. But they settled after the first game and played the most delightful football to earn the respect of the watching continent. But the future of Courbis is uncertain and some claim he may as well join the dole queue.

I had personally tipped Morocco as the team that would take the Holy Grail, especially after they had crushed a full-strength Senegal 4-2 in a friendly game in Dakar prior to the tournament. But alas, just like Senegal, they failed to get out of first gear and crashed out in the first round and now coach Eric Gerets is pleading with the Federation to allow him to stay as he claims he can still offer the team a lot.

Nigeria fired Samson Siasia after their disastrous qualification campaign. And Hassan Shehata resigned mid-way through the qualifiers, even though it was plain to see that following the Arab Spring revolution, many players were openly rebelling against him as he was identified as a part of the fallen regime due to the fact that he served as General in deposed Hosni Mubarak's army.

Angola won one, drew one and lost one to Cote d'Ivoire, yet Jose Vidigal has become a target a abuse by fanatical Angolan supporters who accuse him of favouritism and not "fielding" certain players. Now the coach's future is hanging by a thread and it is up to the Angolan Federation to decide whether they keep him to continue in qualifiers for 2013 AFCON or fire him as well.

Paulo Duarte's contract with the Burkina Faso is coming to an end. But the vocal Portuguese is defying calls to resign. Instead, he insists that the entire Burkinabe federation must resign for their incompetence. He further claims that they withdrew players that he selected and lumped him with players he did not know. He further alleges that on the eve of the tournament, the federation had still not finalized documents enabling several players to be registered with both CAF and Fifa to make them eligible to represent the country.

Spare a thought for Frenchman Michel Dussuyer. His father passed on just after Guinea's opening match against Mali. They dominated the match and yet were felled by a sucker punch to lose 1-0. Then they annihilated Botswana 6-1 and held Ghana to a 1-1 draw, but it was not enough to qualify for the knocked out stage. All the players want him to stay for his sacrifices and the manner in which he resuscitated this Guinean team.

They had eliminated Nigeria from the qualifiers and were among the most entertaining teams in the tournament. But Guionea has not indicated whether they will keep him to continue in the job that he has started or not. He rejuvenated a team that was aging and with veterans Pascal Feinduno and Bobo Balde guiding them, he brought in exceptionally talented youngsters like Ibrahima Traore and they needed just a little bit of luck to have progressed further.

Then there is Botswana. The first team to qualify, for the first time in their history. But proper support structures were not in place. I did not expect them to win the tournament, I knew they were boxing out of their weight division. For them this was a learning curve and I hope they have observed everything they need in order to develop and be better prepared for 2013 and beyond.

Some of the issues that Stanley Tshosane and his team were subjected to by their own federation as well as kit sponsors are too embarrassing to mention on this family blog. I hope they have learned valuable lessons that they will put into practice when they get back to Gaborone and offer Tshosane an extension of his contract before they embark on preparations for 2013.

I am aware that under normal circumstances, the coaches of the four teams remaining in the tournament - Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Zambia and Mali - can be considered to have been successful because now they have qualified for a stage where medals are awarded. But football is an abnormal game and I wouldn't bet against one of the four coaches being fired for "failing" to win the tournament!