Why Africa hasn't won the FIFA World Cup

2. SLOW AND INEFFICIENT ATTACK/COUNTER ATTACK ORGANIZATION.

When compared to European and South American world cup sides, most African teams to the world cup build up their attack slowly, making it easier for the bigger teams to organize defense.

Jose Mourinho, already arguably one of the most controversial yet successful soccer managers of all time, said something a while back to the effect that any team playing very modern soccer must be set up to counter attack effectively if it wants to be successful.

The Italians highlighted the trend to come with their winning Catenaccio plus Counter Attack in 1982.

Less than 8 years ago, it was statistically confirmed that some top club sides in Europe score almost 20% of their goals from counter attacks alone.

Because today’s soccer defenses at the highest level are so well organized, a significant percentage of real goal scoring opportunities now come from defending well and quickly identifying temporary openings in the opposition’s defense that can emerge while they are attacking. A team relying on regular goals and set pieces is limited.

Because the typical African team at the world cup has been more dependent on players’ individual brilliance, such players tend to hold on to the ball longer than necessary, such that even their team’s normal build - up towards the opposing goal tend to be slower than the world cup winning standard. When such African teams get an opportunity to launch a counter attack against a team like Germany or France, the opportunity is likely to be lost because it is not quick and efficient enough.

This problem has been more pronounced with the ub Saharan African Teams. The North African Teams tend to be more efficient.