Tô be honest from the map it looks like half a continent.
You could flip it though and suggest that 28 degrees is probably not a good tempature to play football in anyhow. He would be highly likely to miss most of pre season anyhow and I think this might be his first break coming up for some time.
When it’s three or four players it annoyed me, one who will be approaching 33 it’s probably better he got a prolonged break in the summer and then straight through. You would also assume that Egyptian team is going to struggle next time it wasn’t the best of tactics last time out.
If he has to play in it, the winter is ironically more beneficial.
Think it would be far better for him and us for it to be in the summer. Look at the impact AFCON had on his form this year. Literally nose-dived on return, albeit from stellar heights
We all forensically counted the games last time, for both Mo and Sadio. We lined up our schedule and permed how many games, and how many games of consequence, they would miss. As it happened they both went all the way with their countries, but even at that point, they didn’t miss too much action with us.
But the main point is look at the strikers we have now! Diaz, Nunez, Jota, Carvalho, Firmino. And maybe by then Gordon will be in the reckoning a bit more, and/or we may have signed someone else, especially if Bobby moves on.
We will be fine.
In a wider sense, the Africans are, of course, allowed to love football and have their own continental tournament. Witness the scenes around Senegal winning it - hundreds of thousands out in the streets, and at that point Sadio Mane could have ran for President and won! It all very much added to the notion of a truly global beautiful game.
The problem is the lack of cohesion among the governing bodies. Everyone wants more games, and there are various jurisdictions, all making a lot of money, and so with vested interests. That underlying issue goes much wider than AFCON, though obviously AFCON scheduling is part of it.
In the era when we have more and more players prolonging their careers, someone like Mo should be pretty good to keep his levels up until he’s 32 or 33. Maybe he does it for longer, but for now I’ll count on 2-3 more years of Salah here, then we’ll see when the story ends. He should be good for a few more years, physically he’s a machine.
What will be more interesting to follow is the evolution of our attack now with Nunez in.
We’ve had this discussion in the dedicated thread but it’s relevant here, I suppose. In the southern countries summer would work. In Equatorial countries the summer period is coinciding with the monsoon period and rainy seasons. Cameroon is only a few degrees above the equator and the tournament had to be moved from June/July to January as will happen with any country that straddles the equator or north of it with the possible exception of Kenya.
Then, leaving aside all the weather completely, infrastructure is not really so great everywhere. Unlike Europe where the tournament can go to almost any country and be assured of working infrastructure and good stadiums, Africa… not so much. I shudder to think of a tournament in the DRC, for example. Mid year tournaments are not really feasible for much of the continent I’m afraid
Yeah, how does that happen? Caught the wrong train at Clapham Junction? Ticked the wrong box on a form? Upset the father in law by swearing during Sunday lunch?
Next season is a pretty unprecedented situation and so there is no way of knowing how the WC is going screw things up for different clubs, but the best way to avoid that is to not take part in it at all.
Lennox Lewis once got a KO win against Shannon Briggs from Briggs doing that
He’s good at analyzing action within games. He’s very bad at analyzing the bigger picture.
IN!!!
