GIVEN that Togo is such a small country, that the national team finished the previous two World Cup qualifying competitions in last place in their group and that their chances are so hindered by the self-interested president of the national football federation, the question is even more pertinent: how on earth did they qualify for this summer’s World Cup finals?
The answer must lie with Stephen Keshi, the coach, who is Nigerian and captained the Super Eagles of Nigeria in the 1994 World Cup finals. After that World Cup, Keshi stayed in the United States and started coaching only when he was asked to take charge of the football team at his daughter’s school.
From such small beginnings, he has moved on to help the Togo team progress, while the Super Eagles have regressed. His first job was to recruit a number of French players of Togolese parentage and he then built the kind of spirit and work ethic that you would expect from any team performing above themselves, but he has also managed to introduce a level of professionalism to team affairs, despite the amateurism of the set-up around him.
For instance, Keshi introduced a team uniform. Previously, the relative wealth of the European and the Togo-based players made an obvious split in the side. Keshi has also insisted on a proper training camp before this African Cup of Nations, which starts tomorrow, which the “Hawks” had never had before.
Perhaps of most importance was his insistence that he be given total control of the team. African sides down the ages have had politicians meddling with selection; the previous coach, Antonio Dumas, a Brazilian, brought in and naturalised two of his countrymen and because the federation president had gone to such extremes for him, it was accepted that he then gave the president a say in selection in return.