Sunleye-Solawumi Olaleye
14 October 2008
Lagos — Nations Cup/World Cup Qualifiers
Direct Entries: -Cameroon - Group 1 - Guinea - Grp 2 -Benin Grp 3 -Nigeria - Grp 4 -Ghana - Grp 5 -Algeria - Grp 6
-Cote d'Ivoire - Grp 7 -Morocco - Grp 8 -Burkina Faso - Grp 9 -Mali - Grp 10 -Zambia - Grp. 11 -Egypt - Grp. 12
Best Losers: Kenya - Grp. 2 -Gabon - Grp 5 - Mozambique- Grp 7 - Rwanda- Grp 8 -Tunisia - Grp 9 -Sudan - Grp 10 -Togo - Grp 11 -Malawi - Grp 12
Dramatic last day results in the Round Two group matches of the Africa Cup of Nations cum World Cup 2010 qualifiers at the weekend has conspired to throw out some intriguing finalists; just as it eliminated some top class sides of the continent.
Among those surprisingly eliminated were 2010 Cup of Nations hosts, Angola, one of the former giants of the continent and former champions of the cup, South Africa, the new mighty team of Africa, Senegal. Some of the interesting ones it has brought forward are Sudan, Rwanda, Mozambique and Malawi.
But more than this, the most interesting aspect of this qualifier series was how it played out on the very last day.
With the Confederation of Africa Football, CAF, cunningly changing the scripts on the eve of the final day as to the criteria to be used to decide those who would win the tickets for the eight best-loser slots, it was no longer a straight points and goal difference fight for those positions. Rather, it meant a team could come out with higher points and still end up losing the battle for the ticket to another with fewer points.
CAF came up with their new arrangement because, perennially, in four-team per group contests of this nature, teams coming from three-team groups had always failed to make the mark. This happens that way since with fewer matches to play, there was never a way for them to accumulate as many points as runners-up in four-team groups could. So they always come short of the best-losers mark.
With the new CAF arrangement, all best losers from four-team groups get treated as if they were coming from a three-team group. This gets done by subtracting a team; the last team, in their group. This means their entire statistic against the last team in the group is subtracted from their figures.
Under this arrangement, countries like Cape Verde and Angola that could have made it to the third round, failed at the tie-breaking level of the new criteria.
And not only this, on the last day, Uganda were poised to qualify. They already did, using the new criteria. But Angola had a match at hand against Niger. After beating Niger 2-1, Angola leap-frogged Uganda to become the second place team of the group, their win having cancelled out the second position of Uganda. But due the new rule, Angola failed to make the mark. So, instead of a second team qualifying from the group, both Angola and Uganda lost out on the ticket.
In the same manner, in Group 6, Senegal and Gambia each needed a win to ensure ticket. But they were playing against each other. By the time they had ended with a 1-1 draw, they found both themselves knocked out by the new criteria, their drawn result having cancelled each other's chances out on the last day.
On the converse side, Togo was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the new rules. Had it not being applied, Togo would not have made it to this Third Round.
With Angola already out of the proceedings, if it was not for the fact that they are hosts for the 2010 African tourney, they would have been missing in the competition, but they are definitely out of reckoning for the World Cup. In the same manner, South Africa would only be in the World Cup Finals because they are hosts. And they are already out of the Cup of Nations.
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