JOHANNESBURG — The World Cup opens Friday, and this host city is draped in the flags of the 32 participating nations. With the world’s biggest sporting event coming to Africa for the first time, hope wafts across the continent that one of the six African teams might win.
“The talent is there, certainly,” Bob Bradley, the United States coach, said.
Yet history says that disarray in preparations, desperate coaching changes, poverty, official corruption and vagaries of the draw will conspire against Africa’s chances. And injuries have afflicted two of the continent’s best players. The prospects for forward Didier Drogba of Ivory Coast are uncertain after he broke an arm Friday, and midfielder Michael Essien of Ghana is out of the monthlong tournament with a balky knee.
Of course, winning the World Cup is a formidable task for any country. Soccer’s governing body ranks more than 200 national teams. In the 18 World Cups played since the tournament’s inception in 1930, only seven countries have won the title, and all have been from Europe or South America.
Pelé once predicted that an African team would win the World Cup by the turn of the century. And the host country, South Africa, wants to use the World Cup to unite the country and to rebut the stereotype of Africa as a place of conflict, poverty and disease.
Yet South Africa risks becoming the first host nation to fail to reach the second round.
And only two African teams have advanced as far as the quarterfinals — Cameroon in 1990 and Senegal in 2002.
This year, Cameroon, at 19th in the world the highest-ranked African team in the tournament, faces odds of 100 to 1 to win the title. Ivory Coast, ranked 27th, is 50 to 1, the best odds of any team from the continent.
“The African teams have tended to destroy themselves in their own environments,” said Jürgen Klinsmann, who won a World Cup playing for West Germany in 1990 and coached a reunified Germany to third place in 2006. “Bonus payments are not paid to players, but administrators cash the checks. There is corruption. Then they eat each other up.”
Uruguay, which won the inaugural tournament and won again in 1950, has been the smallest victorious country to date. Brazil, Italy and Germany have won two-thirds of the titles. Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, another two-time winner, have faced some of the obstacles — namely corruption and poverty — that hamper African squads.
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