Africans hardly go beyond the first round due to lack of a strong mind set.

It is a paradox that while African players make the hay days of European clubs, they have not been able to translate that individual success at club level to their respective countries. This lack of success of African teams at the world stage cannot only be attributed to lack of talents as Africa has some of the finest talents in football t have treaded the surface of the planet earth. Their failure mostly stems from amateurish organisation around the national selections and the yoke of inferiority complex that inhibits the players.

On the issue of poor organisation, African teams usually start serious preparation only on the eve of the competition and hurriedly assembly a constellation of stars who turn to show off their individual talents at times at the detriment of the collective play style as a team. Also, they do not train taking into consideration the type of opponent, pitch and weather conditions of the venue of the tournament. Very often, there is very little or no incentive for the players. The squads also suffer from problems of discipline or logistics which also contribute to undermine the performance of the team.

Concerning the inferiority complex, most African teams go to the World Cup without a firm determination to win the tournament. As such, once they go beyond the first round, they consider their objective attained and relent on their performance as they consider further progress in the competition as a bonus. According to the former Chelsea manager, Israeli born Avram Grant, this mind set usually causes African teams to lose matches they could have won as they lose concentration and aggressiveness, thereby giving the opponents the upper hand.

Coupled with the issues of organisation and inferiority complex is the acute problem of refereeing. It is true some African teams drop out of the competition not because they merited but because of a human error made by the referee. Human error is conceivable but when it becomes repeated, it can only be suspected to be deliberate. Examples are abound of such deliberate attempts by referee to oust African teams either by constantly blowing against the African team, awarding yellow or red cards or disallowing valid goals. The 2014 World Cup in Brazil is therefore an opportunity for African countries to break the yoke of inferiority complex and aim for the highest pedestal on the rostrum in the world football jamboree. Nigeria and Cameroon did so at the Olympics, Ghana with the U-20 World Cup and why should Brazil 2014 not see an African team rise to the top of the firmament in world football.