Time for the underdog to shine

So, the Africa Cup of Nations gets under way in the next week or so, and what an interesting tournament it is shaping up to be.

That’s mainly because the ‘Big Five’ of Nigeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Algeria and South Africa are not going to be involved. Yip, in football, reputation counts for nothing and those established nations paid the price for poor qualifying campaigns.

So, the time is right for an unheralded African football nation to come through and surprise everyone, as Burkina Faso did when they hosted the tournament in 1998 and reached the semifinals before losing out to Egypt.

From a personal point of view, I’ve been following the Zambia and Botswana teams. That’s because of my teammates involved. We’ve got Dipsy Selolwane and Mogogi Gabonamong turning out for Botswana and then Davies Nkausu for Zambia. On top of that, a former teammate from my Germany days, Chris Katongo, is the Zambian captain.

It was interesting to see the Zambians draw with a young Bafana Bafana team, which I think was a better result for the South Africans, who were severely under-strength. But, it’s still early days and a lot of teams are still going through their preparations.

As we get closer to the start of the tournament, you’ll see some of the big teams settling on their starting formations, and that’s going to be very interesting. Who knows - you might see an underdog like Botswana coming through.

Hopefully they can continue their fantastic run in the qualification campaign and surprise a few of the bigger teams. I certainly get the feeling that it’s going to be an AFCON tournament of surprises.

Back home in the SuperSport camp, we’ve been back in training since Monday 9 January and I can tell you that it’s been pretty tough going. We’ve been running like dogs and putting in the yards, but it’s going to pay off, and I’m already impressed with what shape the guys arrived back in from their Christmas break.

No-one was too overweight and so it’s just a case of getting the fitness levels back up to where they should be. Then comes the tactical work and getting the guys ready for the final charge to the end of the season.

There hasn’t actually been a message from Gavin that he believes that fitness will give us a chance to reclaim that title, but it certainly seems the case, as he’s pushed us hard from day one after the break. So, the plan for the first week was clearly to run the guys fit and blow some cobwebs out.

In terms of the actual process after a break, you might be interested to know that we start off by jumping on the scale to see how much weight we’ve put on. But, like I’ve said, no-one was too overweight, which was quite impressive, considering what’s put before you over the Christmas break in terms of food and drink. I think the guys have taken a very professional approach, but they also know that it makes the training easier if you come back in fairly decent shape.

We are humans, after all, and we all like to enjoy ourselves, eating and drinking. Maybe that’s why I was so impressed this time.

So, plenty of hard work ahead with the resumption of the league season about a month away. I’m sure Gavin has plenty of tactical work and friendly games lined up for us.

Until next week.