Skip to main content

Events that had a realistic possibility of happening in football history.

USA winning the FIFA World Cup: USA doesn't take football as seriously as other countries but if they took it as seriously as basketball, baseball or Gridiron football, I believe that they could've easily won the FIFA World Cup twice. They were semi-finalists in the first FIFA World Cup in 1930 & beat European Champions, Spain, in the 2009 Confederations Cup. 


Netherlands winning the World Cup: Netherlands reached the FIFA World Cup Final three times, so it's safe to say that they had a real chance of possibly winning it three times. 


Catalonia winning the World Cup: If the stars aligned just right & Catalonia separated from Spain around 50 or so years ago, they could've won the World Cup or at least been European Champions. The Spanish team that won the FIFA World Cup as well as Euro 2008 & Euro 2012 was comprised of many notable Catalan players. The player that scored the winning goal in the FIFA World Cup of 2010 was Catalan Andres Iniesta. 


Morocco winning the World Cup: Morocco could've been the first ever African country to win the World Cup in 2022 when they reached the semifinals. 


South Africa winning the African Cup of Nations three times: Bafana Bafana was excluded for decades from international football & won AFCON in their first qualification of the tournament. They were AFCON runners-up in 1998 & semi-finalists in 2000. South Africa were one of the original founding members of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Considering that the best footballers of South Africa came before 1994 i. e. the likes of Jomo Sono, George Dearnaley, Abednigo Ngcobo, Cedric Xulu, Nelson Dladla, Ace Ntsoelengwe etc. This country could've easily been African Champions three times were it not for Apartheid. 
 

Orlando Pirates being two-time African Champions: Orlando Pirates won the CAF Champions League in 1996 & were finalists in 2013. Because of Apartheid again, no South African team participated in continental tournaments because of a FIFA ban. So other teams in South Africa could've won the Champions' League including Kaizer Chiefs, the AmaZulu F. C. team of 1972 & 1973 among others. But again, Apartheid boycotts prevented South Africa from participating in international sports. 


Zululand winning AFCON: If South Africa could've won AFCON three times, why couldn't KwaZulu have won AFCON once? Many of the best South African footballers have come from KZN or were Zulu. So again, if fate went differently & KwaZulu never became Natal or joined the Union of South Africa & Apartheid never existed, we could assume Zululand could've won AFCON once in it's history. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The problem with a single African currency.

Preword: It's funny because one of the main reasons I found the courage to blog on African matters was due to a West African(?) gentleman who proposed the concept of a said "swal" & "zul" as a continental African currency in a blog. His boldness & conviction in his idea just captivated me & today I have to debunk this idea of his. But, hopefully, Africa sees why. African technologies & financial solutions Oh, Africa. We are so romantic; "United States of Africa", "Single African currency", "African unity", "Ubuntu"... all these fluffy, lovey-dovey concepts that will be ripped to shreds in the globalised world.  I debunked why a United States of Africa would likely collapse as soon as it sees the light of day. Today, I will debunk the concept of a "Single African currency" & explain why it would leave our enemies salivating.  I can't blame people who like stuff like United States of Africa...

A viable single African currency concept.

The original reason why I believe a single African currency would not work. Below is how we could attempt to make it work.  The many currencies of Africa. To prevent destabilization of the continent's economy, there could be two currencies: The Lami  for countries lying mostly north of the equator & the Ng'ombe  for countries mostly south of the equator. Both currencies would be independent with the Lami having it's bank & headquarters in Addis Ababa while the Ng'ombe could have it's bank & headquarters in Nairobi.  N.B.: Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville, DRC & Kenya would use the Ng'ombe currency while Uganda & Somalia would use the Lami currency.  North of equator = Lami  South of equator = Ng'ombe   More stable countries with higher GDP per capita could be first to use the new currencies i.e. Seychelles, Mauritius, Gabon, Botswana, Libya, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Algeria, Na...

What did King Shaka look like?

I've heard some people quoting from King Shaka's praises claiming that he was "like the sun" therefore light-skinned. But I'd like to ask how comparisons with the sun equate with being light-skinned? If anything, if King Shaka was light-skinned, they'd compare him to something terrestrial like the colour of a cow hide, wood or other object because very few extraterrestrial objects have the colour of any human skin. Even white people are called "ondlebe zikhanya ilanga" ('those who have translucent ears") & not  "abakhanya okwelanga" ("those who shine like the sun"). King Shaka's mother was from Elangeni & there is the Langa clan in KZN, all of them are black with many being exceptionally dark-skinned so I don't think the comparisons comparing King Shaka with the sun have anything to do with his complexion. Even the whites who first saw him & drew him wrote that he was dark & fairly tall. I also don...