(no Copa America-type water logging here). They want to WIN. The 2006 final in Egypt was a crime scene when the hosts overcame a dominating Ivory Coast squad to win on home soil. Interestingly enough, the Confederation of African Football uses the FIFA World Cup qualification process as the qualification for the CAN. Even though the group stage winners qualify for the World Cup, the competition stays fierce for the remaining slots of the African Cup.The Cup usually takes place in January of even-numbered years. By occurring less than six months prior to the FIFA
World Cup it not only gives the African teams a tune-up, but it also gives outside countries an intimate look at how those teams might play if they come up against them in June. In many cases, however, this is the only look these teams disavow. This is owed to the sometimes humble nature of African qualification games. The European Championship, international football's second largest undetaking, takes place two years removed from the FIFA World Cup. Naturally, teams can change quite a bit over the course of two years. The Copa America is at least one year removed depending on their irregular scheduling (and it now seems they have moved to a four-year rotation on the year after the World Cup).As for the jerseys, we want to show you that sometimes taking risks wit
h international team kits sometimes works. Often times national teams are locked into a certain set of parameters which discourage deviance. Do African teams take greater liberties or do they just have cooler colors? We don't know. We don't really care. But we are going to toss out this website so you can see them all. We quite like how they do their thing over there. (Our jury is still out on the shoulder cut off on the away strip. We love the mascot on the shoulder of the home though). What do you think? Shown here from top to bottom are: the Ivory Coast, cup-holders Egypt, and Cameroon!
