NOW THAT YOU KNOW YOUR OPPONENTS WHAT’S NEXT?

The draw for the third round of qualifying in the African Zone for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ was made on October 22, 2008. The matches are scheduled to take place between March and November 2009. What do the teams need to do between now and March 2009?

The first thing that comes to mind: Friendly matches
Friendly match opponents need to be selected wisely. If you are a team from Central Africa and in your group the rest of the Teams are from North Africa then playing friendly matches against teams that are from Central Africa won’t be beneficial to you. Some may say that those friendly matches may still be beneficial because you use them to start new players and give them a real chance, try new systems and persist with them so you can find out what works and what doesn’t. Yes that may be true but this is not time for experiments, it’s time for consistency. Consistency = Reliability = Regularity = Stability.

The teams that will maintain the same squad and feature the same starting 11 during friendly matches will likely do better come March 2009. That said, I think Friendly matches will be very beneficial to teams that have fewer professional players.

For example, I don’t see Ade showing up for a friendly match. I know some of you may say Ade doesn’t need to show up for a friendly because he is a professional player. May be this 2002 Allen Iverson (NBA superstar) News Conference Transcript may enlighten you:

Reporter: “Could you clear about your practicing habits since we can’t see you practice?”

Iverson: “If Coach tells you that I missed practice, then that’s that. I may have missed one practice this year but if somebody says he missed one practice of all the practices this year, then that’s enough to get a whole lot started. I told Coach Brown that you don’t have to give the people of Philadelphia a reason to think about trading me or anything like that. If you trade somebody, you trade them to make the team better…simple as that. I’m cool with that. I’m all about that. The people in Philadelphia deserve to have a winner. It’s simple as that. It goes further than that.

Reporter: “So you and coach Brown got caught up on Saturday about practice?”

Iverson: “If I can’t practice, I can’t practice. It is as simple as that. It ain’t about that at all. It’s easy to sum it up if you’re just talking about practice. We’re sitting here, and I’m supposed to be the franchise player, and we’re talking about practice. I mean listen, we’re sitting here talking about practice, not a game, not a game, not a game, but we’re talking about practice. Not the game that I go out there and die for and play every game last it’s my last but we’re talking about practice man. How silly is that?

Now I know that I’m supposed to lead by example and all that but I’m not shoving that aside like it don’t mean anything. I know it’s important, I honestly do but we’re talking about practice. We’re talking about practice man. (laughter from the media crowd) We’re talking about practice. We’re talking about practice. We’re not talking about the game. We’re talking about practice. When you come to the arena, and you see me play, you’ve seen me play right, you’ve seen me give everything I’ve got, but we’re talking about practice right now. (more laughter)

Reporter: “But it’s an issue that your coach continues to raise?”

Iverson: “Hey I hear you, it’s funny to me to, hey it’s strange to me too but we’re talking about practice man, we’re not even talking about the game, when it actually matters, we’re talking about practice.”

Reporter: “Is it possible that if you practiced, not you but you would make your teammates better?”

Iverson: “How in the hell can I make my teammates better by practicing?

Reporter: “So they can be used to playing with you.”
If you want to read the rest: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/basketball/news/2002/05/09/iverson_transcript/

Now let me back track a little bit. Egypt and Algeria are going to play against Zambia. Malawi and Zambia more or less play the same style. It would be advisable for Egypt and Algeria to play a friendly against Malawi. Egypt and Algeria, if you are willing to foot the bill for the friendly matches against Malawi, Malawi will jump at the opportunity. On the other hand, Malawi will also need to find teams that more or less play like Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Guinea. Which teams could those be and which teams would you like your teams to have friendly matches with?