Month: April 2015

South America voted differently. Today the best player of 1979 seems natural choice – but it was not so back in time. There is peculiar trouble: the big names of the 1970s were shaky and not exactly successful. Journalists were torn between natural inclination to elect well known for years players, but since they were not satisfying a radical change perhaps was in order. The top ten reveals a clear split: Passarella was 8th, Kempes – suffering from injuries – 9th. Fillol – 4th. These won the world championship in 1978 – but were nothing a year later… Zico was 5th – the ‘White Pele’ still had no real victory with neither club, nor national team. The Uruguayan Fernando Morena was 6th – clearly a sympathy vote, for he played for small Spanish club – Rayo Vallecano – and was hardly noticed in Europe. Similar was the case of Carlos Caszely – the Chilean was never a big international news and perhaps was not as good as he was 5 years back. But he was well known name. The old guard was carried on reputation really – and compared to stars from the 1960s, may be found not so great. Argentina and Uruguay had miserable Copa America. Brazil also did not shine. Yet, the Paraguayans,who won both Copa America and Copa Libertadores were hardly great stars – interestingly, not a single player of Olimpia (Asuncion) made the top 10 and only one Paraguayan was included in it. The journalists went for the future – they voted for the young players, who were to really bloom in the next decade. May be a bit premature shift, but it was better than electing some old horse only because he played fantastic football 5 or 10 years ago. The next generation was represented by 4 players – the Argentine striker Ramon Diaz was 10th, his strength was largely based on the second Under-20 World Championship, which Argentina won and he was the top scorer of the finals. And this was the objective problem… great players normally play for highly successful teams. Unfortunately, this was not the case this year and it was very difficult to justify votes. At the end, even the final standing may have been affected by calculations of success – the top three places went to future stars.

Falcao was 3rd, perhaps the only more or less established player among the top three, but just beginning to be a key player for Brazil. Unfortunately for him, no international success – Internacional Porto Alegre won the Brazilian title, but that was all – Brazil did not excel this year.

Second was Julio Cesar Moreno. For many – not just a rival of Maradona, but better than the Argentine. But… Moreno played for a small club – Sportivo Luqueno was the best provincial club of Paraguay, yet, not capable of overcoming the clubs from the capital. The Paraguayan league was small and compared to Brazil, Argentina, even Chile and Peru – a weaker one. Moreno really shined at Copa America and was instrumental to the victory of his country, but perhaps even this counted a bit against him: Argentina and Brazil played with strange teams, as if they did not care for the continental tournament.

First was Diego Maradona – but what can be said about his success? Like Moreno, he played for a smaller club – Argentinos Juniors were not bad, they had more than just Maradona, but they achieved nothing in the Argentinian championships. The national team was even worse. Maradona himself hardly played at Copa America. Yes, he was sensational, scored goals, the fans adored him, but without trophies it was difficult to judge him the best. Perhaps the Under-20 World championship tipped the scale in his favour – he captained Argentina to the title. Junior title… His teammate Osvaldo Rinaldi said “Before every match, Diego played with the ball, putting it on his neck or his shoulders while the Japanese people couldn’t stop applauding him. When I would see this, I would say to myself: “Wow, and the show hasn’t even started yet”. True, but this was in Japan – before still young and unsophisticated audience, easily impressed. It may have been different, if Argentina lost the final – they played against USSR, which had a team of players soon to become more than known around the world. To a point, Argentina even had lesser team than the Soviets.

Standing from left: Sergio Garcia, Sperandio, Carabelli, Rossi, Simon, H.Alves.

First row: Barbas, Escudero, Ramon Diaz, Maradona, Calderon.

At the final Sperandio was replaced by already mentioned Rinaldi. Junior teams are never big indication for future stardom – some players expire early, others develop later. Simon, Barbas, and Calderon eventually became stars. Ramon Diaz – bigger one than the previous three. The rest faded into oblivion… a junior team. Maradona won with it – the only victory he had this year, not the same as winning Copa America, but combined with his impressive play for his club, it sufficed.

Diego Maradona, still teenager, but already captaining Argentinos Juniors, was voted the best South American player.

Perhaps boringly familiar picture now – Maradona scored yet another goal – but it was new back than. It was matches like this one – he destroyed Boca Juniors with fantastic goals, despite the vicious tackles – which perhaps counted more than the junior world title. Maradona had arrived. May be it was even good that most established names of that time underperformed – Maradona became more visible.

African player of the year was voted Thomas N’Kono. As almost every year, no European-based players were included, casting doubt about the real strength of the top African players. More or less, votes went to players of the continental winners. Kerfalla Bangoura (Horoya, Conacry, Guinea) was 3rd with 15 points. Adolf Armah (Hearts of Oak, Ghana) – second with 23 points. Players not heard of before or after… No player of the winners of the African Champions Cup appeared among the top 3. The winner was another story.

N’Kono played for Canon Yaounde, which kind of explains why he was voted high. But there was consistency: It may be debatable was Canon the strongest African club of the decade, but it is certain that it was among the few outstanding clubs and very successful internationally. N’Kono himself was not a meteor like many other African players – coming from nowhere and disappearing just as quickly. In 1978 N’Kono was voted 3rd best player – a year later he was number 1. There were no whims and petty favouritism in voting for him. And his star was going to soar even higher. His first international recognition went unnoticed outside Africa, but it was overwhelming – he got 55 points: 17 more than the combined record of the next two players.

 

The African Champions Cup was equally exotic to outsiders, but more troublesome than the Cup Winners Cup. Perhaps one has to look to the political history of Africa in order to get some meaning of seemingly anarchic football tournaments – internal and international conflicts, poverty, fantastic ambitious, propaganda reasons played big roles in the game. Because of apartheid, South Africa was expelled from the continental federation. Many countries did not participate in the club tournaments for various reasons – 28 teams participated in the 1979 Champions Cup, at least before the tournament started. Two withdraw without playing a match, curiously, they were paired together: Breweries (Kenya) and Al-Merreikh (Sudan). Bata Bullets (Malawi) followed suit without playing a match. Simba FC (Uganda) traveled to play the first leg against Zamalek (Egypt), lost 1-2, and withdraw. One may wonder why they they spent money on difficult travel to Egypt at all. Well, it was familiar picture – withdrawals happened every year. And not only in the first round.

At the 1/8 finals Matlama FC (Lesotto) had no opponent at all – thanks to the withdrawal of Breweries and Al-Merreikh in the first round. Ogaden Anbassa (Ethiopia) withdraw at this stage – another curiousity, typical of Africa: Odaden Anbassa did not play any match: they qualified to the 1/8 finals because Bata Bullets withdrew before the first round started. Now it was the turn of the Ethiopian champions to do the same. Zamalek qualified to the ¼ with only one home game so far: Simba FC decided not to play the second leg against the Egyptians in the first round and Odagen Anbassa – not at all in the second.

No club withdraw from the third round, but this does not mean all games were played: Zamalek won 3-1 the first leg against CS Imana (Zaire) at home. In the second leg CS Imana was leading 1-0 when the match was abandoned. The reason is murky, for African football is notoriously corrupt, but CS Imana was awarded a win and they reached the semi-finals. Zamalek was expelled – after playing a total of 2 and half matches, of which they won 2. There was another drama at the ¼ finals – Hafia (Guinea) played against Hearts Of Oak (Ghana): arguably, the strongest African club at the time vs the represent of arguably strongest football nation of the continent. Hafia won 2-0 in Conacry. The Ghanaian champions prevailed at home 3-0 and eliminated the closest to a super-club the continent had (Hafia was more than supported by the Guinean government: they were designed to be a show case of the country – all best players were moved to Hafia by political order).

The semi-finals were clean affair – in terms of results. CS Imana was obviously not that strong a team and they lost both legs to Union Douala (Cameroon): 1-2 and 0-1. The other semi-final was even less dramatic – Hearts of Oak were clearly superior to US Goree (Senegal). The Hearts won 2-1 in Senegal and 4-1 at home. At a glance, the finalists represented the top of the African football: the traditional ‘powerhouse’ Ghana vs rapidly developing and already leading on club level Cameroon.

Exciting or not, the final at least was played between equal opponents. Hearts of Oak won the first leg in Accra 1-0. The second leg was played in Yaounde – most likely because there was no big enough stadium in Douala – Union won also 1-0. The winner was decided by penalty shootout. Usually home turf benefits a team at such occasion, but Union was not playing at home… Still, there was home turf advantage – at least because supporters of visiting African teams were few, if any, back in the 1970s: it was expensive and difficult to travel abroad just to see a match. Union won the shootout 5-3 and triumphed in front of their cheerful fans. And that is almost all one could say about the final… no other records except the results can be traced.

Hearts of Oak, very old by African standards club, popular and successful at home, were not so successful internationally. Yes, the represented arguably the strongest African football nation – but this to a point is also a myth, for Ghana did not really dominate the continent neither on the level of national teams, nor at club level. There is no recognizable player traceable to the team reaching and losing the Champions Cup final – and this is a hint of the difference between winner and losers.

Union – Union Sportive Douala, as the full name is – triumphed with their first international trophy. It was more than club’s success: winning the cup testified for the strength of the whole Cameroonian football: the country won both African club trophies this year. It was a second consecutive year Cameroonians won the Champions Cup. The Cup went to Cameroon for a 4th time – after 1964, 1971, and 1978. It was not only teams from the capital winning internationally – suggesting high quality of Cameroonian football as a whole, not simply one or two clubs, where the best players of the country were brought together by governmental whim. And Union was not very old club – they were founded in 1957, yet, they were already 3 times champions of Cameroon, despite the fact that they had strong rivals in Douala, not to mention the competition of the clubs based in the capital Yaounde. So much can be extracted from the victory… for Union left almost no trace of themselves.

This may be a photo of Union from the great season… at least, it is a picture from that period. No names… not even the line-up from the final matches. Well, there was no particular interest in 1979 – the players were entirely unknown outside Cameroon. Nobody famous back then. The only player known to be part of the winning team is the goalkeeper – Joseph-Antoine Bell (b. 1954). Rings a bell? Of course – his career was spectacular, he was essential part of the successful Cameroonian national team. But fame came in the 1980s – in 1979 nobody knew of Bell, let alone recognizing him as a star. 25-years old, he was still nobody… as his teammates. Internationally, a nobody, but a winner nevertheless. Hard to imagine in 1979 that among the African club winners were two of the all-time best African goalkeepers – Bell and N’Kono.