Champions League special

Two mega teams meet in Rome next Wednesday for what is the de facto world championship, despite the other tournament that Fifa promote as the World Club Championship; this is the one that matters. Head to head will be the two undoubtedly best players in the world; men who play the game like it ought to be played. Messi and Ronaldo have been a class above everyone else this year; for Messi the comparisons with Maradona are apt, for Ronaldo he seems a unique talent who can score industrial amounts of goals from midfield. With respect to Chelsea and Arsenal, the best two teams got to the final. Imagine Chelsea in the final and just parked the bus in front of the goal for 90 minutes? Or Arsenal capitulated in the final the way they did in the Semi? Barcelona are a great side to watch with the major weakness in defence, mainly caused by Carlos Puyol who is probably the worst reactionary defender in the world. If Puyol had played in the game against Chelsea then they wouldn’t be in the final, the excellent Yaya Toure deputised in an unfamiliar role and marked his countryman Drogba out of the game. United have everything in abundance with talent to spare; there is no easily visible weakness in their game apart from occasional complacency. But the Champions League I want to talk about is the African Champion’s League which is growing year on year into a very good tournament. The North African teams with superior resources have dominated, winning 26 out of 45 trophies since the tournament started in 1964. Throughout its various guises, the African Club championship has been stuff of legend; Canon Yaoundé beating Hearts of Oak in 1979, SC Villa making it to the final in 1991 but losing, Enyimba doing the double in 2003-2004. What has changed in the world of football is whereas football was a radio sport in the past where we used to sit around watching the radio like a TV; it is now a TV sport. The scheduling of the African football season has always been a problem, particularly for European clubs with African players who they have to release quite often. Even with the off-season, the ACL is unable to compete with the European product. The Arab teams are fully professional; their players often stay home because they receive good pay at home though some go Europe. This year should see a new champion crowned as Al-Ahly were beaten narrowly by Kano Pillars; the other great Egyptian side Zamalek is also missing and Etoile Sahel are the only North African team remaining. The great Egypt side that won the Nations Cup in 2008 is slowly being dismantled as players like Hossam Ghaly, Shawky, Amr Zaki, Mohammed Zidan have all moved to Europe hence weakening their home clubs. The Sudanese teams; Al-Merreikh and Al-Hilal are also flush with cash and can afford 5-6 foreign players each; Al-Hilal also have a Brazilian striker. Old venerated teams like TP Mazembe are seeking to match the domination they had in the late 60’s but Etoile Sahel must be favourites on paper as they have a deep squad of 30 pros. The success story of the year is Monomatapa from Zimbabwe; in a country that has been brought to its knees economically, where people are starving and dying of cholera, and yet they have reached the group stages. I am an old-fashioned guy, I prefer the days when it was a knockout competition and all teams were equally feared but times have changed, it is a television spectacle but needs more coverage; why can’t TVR show the ACL regularly? Or how will the economic climate both globally and in Africa affect the ACL? The rise of commodity prices helped fund the revival of African football; the teams from Sudan, Tunisia and Nigeria had oil revenues, Mazembe and ZESCO come from the copper-belt and the Zimbabwean team had ZANU-PF money as well as luck on their side. Sadly East and Central African teams are once again missing from the top echelons as this is part of a wider malaise that cannot be fixed overnight but the distant memory of APR 4-1 Zamalek gives us all hope that we can challenge in the not too distant future. United should continue the English domination and muzzle Messi to claim their 4th European Cup in history. At a time when UEFA is considering ways to break the dominance of England and Spain, we should also think of ways to level the playing field in Africa but no immediate ideas come to mind. ramaisibo@hotmail.com