DailySport

The African cup is a competition with it's history dating back to 1957. The competition is hosted every two years and it is quite notably hosted in January because of the continent's climatic conditions. In every single competition there are interesting   dynamics; nations with history and nations in form. My wish as a writer is to exploit the dynamics of the African continent with you. The grand masters of most competition like to establish themselves in the early stages of the competition and in the AFCON it isn't any different.The first edition of this tournament was claimed by the Pharoahs  of Egypt in the South Saharan parts of Sudan, the Egyptians would continue to become record winners in the competition winning it 7 times with a show of brute force and power in every single conquer or dominance if you may. The pharos are the only side to have won the competition 3 times in a row;2006,2008 and in 2010 making them out rightly the most successful footballing nation o...

There is but one rule of thumb when it comes to coaching and it is that  great players don’t equal great managers. Of course outliers like Zizou and Pep abound with every  rule but the fact underrated is that the best and brightest of managers we’ve seen were very crappy players to say the least and the professor is no exception.   Ragnick had a short lived career which ended at age 25 after being released by ULM 1846. This began his coaching career as a player manager at Viktoria Backnang in 1983. Carl Jung popularly believed that the subconscious  is the key to our life pursuits  however for the professor the key to his footballing pursuits  in terms of style  is found in his observations of   Valery  Lobanovskyi and Arrigo  Sachi. Lobanovskyi  and Sachi are both impeccable winners which doesn’t give   much room for  criticism of styles, Why? Because their styles work. Lobanovskyi  won the Russian top fligh...

The ballon d'or is an award with a history dating back to 1956. In the early stages of the award  only European players were eligible to claim the prestigious prize. This very erroneous system lasted for 38 good years until  Ac Milan and Liberia's George Weah became the first non European and African player to win the top prize in 1995. Till date he is the only African to have won it. Of course this event was aided and preceded by a change in format making non Europeans eligible, but regardless Weah deserves so much credit. To put this in the right context, the world watched for 38 years as big names such as Mario Kempes, Pele, Maradona and Garrincha all had the golden ball elude their tenuous grasp even though they were arguably the best players on the planet at one point in time. In the same period the ballon d'or stamped many names in the mind of every football lover. Without South American superstars hovering around Yohan Cruyff and Miche...

 Though it might not strike recent memories, Newcastle once found themselves in the greats of English football and arguably still are. There is however no doubt about their significance in English football history as the Magpies have just spent 3 seasons out of the top flight. In all, the 'Toons' have participate in English topflight football 89 times amassing a total of 14 trophies in their very coveted history; only 8 British teams have a more impressive count.  The club’s most successful era came in the early 90's where they won three out of their four premiership titles and a league cup. The turn of the new century clearly brought good omen to the club but undoubtedly Andy Aitken and his boys served the Toons well.  The next turn of major events for the magpies would come ironically at the end of the century as they signed the most prolific English man to ever grace the game. Alan Shearer signed for Newcastle in 1996 in a world record deal which summed up to fifteen m...

 Ole was appointed interim manager in March 2019 following the sack of Jose Mourinho. The former red devils striker got the nod for the job on  the merits of  the fact that he is a club legend amongst other immediate conveniences then. He inherently had the uneasy task of restoring calm to the storm after Jose's controversial midseason exit.  In Ole's first two seasons his red devil side were delightful in most parts  and sparkled hope as the side placed in the top 4 three consecutive times finishing 2nd in their last campaign. The Norwegian also rounded up impressive victories against the traditional top six sides and other big sides in Europe giving the Sretford end many nights to remember. As at December 2019 the baby face assassin had a win percentage of 53.8% against the "traditional" top six sides in England which was more than impressive for the Norwegian. One would assume that after the addition of big names such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Raphael Varane and ...