AFRICAN DREAMS

Africa has the skills, the players and the passion to achieve greatness, so why has global success eluded the continent? 

- Mark Gleeson

England manager Walter Winterbottom is said to have made the first claim, but Pelé gave it a wider resonance: The assertion that an Africa team would win the World Cup "by the turn of the century".

Pelé had toured Africa with Brazilian club Santos in the late 1960s and been impressed with the technical talent on display, but for all the seductive skill and dribbling wizardry that caught his eye, it is a prediction yet to be fulfilled.

As the World Cup in Qatar kicks off, it is almost a quarter century overdue.

Africa has teased and titillated on occasion, but its best efforts over the last 50 years have been restricted to three quarter-final appearances.

Cameroon's Indomitable Lions took England to extra time in the last eight at Italia '90, capturing the imagination with a swagger best epitomised by the 38-year-old Roger Milla, who celebrated his goals with a seductive dance atop the corner flag.

Senegal offered the hope of an African evolution when they got to the quarter-finals in Asia in 2022, famously beating defending champions - and former colonial power - France in the opening game in Seoul, with a result that resonated across the continent.

CAMEROON ANDRÉ ONANA The goalkeeper returned from a nine-month drugs ban last season and has moved to Serie A from Ajax Amsterdam.

Ghana flew the flag at the first African World Cup in 2010 and would have reached the semi-finals had star striker Asamoah Gyan not blasted wide a lastgasp penalty against Uruguay.

But at the last World Cup in Russia, none of the five African teams got past the first round in the worst return for the continent in some four decades.

MOROCCO ACHRAF HAKIMI The flying right back has won honours in LaLiga, Serie A and Ligue 1 on the books of Real Madrid, Inter Milan and most lately Paris St Germain.