The first round of the world cup finally came to an end on Friday 25th of June and as it stands, Ghana is the only African team to remain in the tournament. Narrowly losing to Germany in their last group game did not cause Ghana to crash out of the tournament. Cameroon, the first African team to reach the quarterfinals of a world cup final became the first African country to be booted out of the tournament. Arsenal’s Nikolas Bentdner was a catalyst in their dismissal as he set up one and scored another to send the indomitable lions out of the tournament.

Ivory Coast, one of Africa’s brightest prospects was also eliminated as they could not manage to score 9 goals against the North Koreans and Brazil could not beat Portugal. The Ivoirians were impressive in their first game against Portugal but their inability to beat the Portuguese and their 3-1 loss to Brazil meant they missed out on a second round ticket despite beating the South Koreas in their last game.
Despite losing their first two games, the Super Eagles of Nigeria would have made it to the second round if they could beat South Korea in their final group game. But inspite of leading with an early goal scored by Kalu Uche, Nigeria failed to beat South Korea. Perhaps the highlight of the tournament for the Nigerian team would be the red card of Sani Kaita against Greece and Yakubu Aiyebgeni’s unbelievable miss against South Korea. The miss which has been hailed as the miss of the tournament so far, saw Yakubu Aiyegbeni miss a chance to score with just an open goal to beat.

Algeria, the only North African side to qualify for the tournament this year also lost to USA with a last minute goal scored by Michael Donavan. A loss to Slovenia and a scoreless draw with England meant that the Desert foxes of Algeria finished bottom of their group with only one point and no goals scored. Algeria’s loss to USA was further marred by an incident that saw Rafiki Saifi slap a female Algerian Journalist. The incident has raised concerns and FIFA has promised to look into the issue.
Ghana plays USA in the next few hours and we hope that by the time you read this article an African team has made it to the quarterfinal of the world cup for the third time in History.

Tagged as: CIV, Ghana, nigeria, South Africa, World cup