It sounds so simple in theory. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has the size: this is the 11th largest country in the world by area.
DR Congo has the capacity: this is the 16th largest country in the world by population, roughly the size of western Europe. DR Congo has the heritage: this was the first country from sub-Saharan Africa to play at the World Cup.
DR Congo has the football: only Cairo’s Al Ahly have won more CAF Champions League titles than TP Mazembe, who were also the first ever African club to reach a Club World Cup final.
In Kinshasa, in Lubumbashi, in Goma and everywhere else, potential remains only a theory: 1974 remains their only World Cup qualification as Zaire or DR Congo, added to by only the 2006 and 2008 U20 Women’s World Cups at age-group level. This century there have been 13 Africa Cup of Nations tournaments and DR Congo had won just six tournament matches before Friday evening.
15 of Africa’s 55 national teams have reached an Afcon final since DR Congo last did. They have been the continent’s sleeping giants for so long that many have given up hope of that slumber ever being broken. The Leopards cannot change their spots.
Predictably, this is not about the football. DR Congo remains one of the continent’s most troubled nations, political and civil unrest and conflict running like a seam through it since independence in 1960. An estimated six million people have been killed in internal wars since 1996 alone: the First and Second Congo Wars, the Kivu conflict, the M23 rebellion, ongoing insurgencies by the Allied Democratic Forces. Millions more have been displaced by violence.
The tragedy: DR Congo has some of the most valuable untapped natural resources on the planet, particularly cobalt and copper. It has the world’s second-largest rainforest.
Chinese companies closely connected to the government now control most of the cobalt and copper mines and, as such, DR Congo has become both dependent upon Beijing and risks exploitation by it. The connection is not entirely linear, but still: the International Monetary Fund lists DR Congo 186th out of 189 nations for GDP per capita, adjusted for cost of living.
But also: this is everything about the football too. Children play at the Bulengo internally displaced people’s camp in eastern Congo, on the outskirts of border town Goma, where so many of such camps have been required due to the escalation of tensions with Rwanda. They play not for escape – that is a little too on the nose – but certainly for distraction and for a dose of normality.
Football was, inevitably, used as a political tool by Joseph Kabila during his 18-year reign of oppression until 2019.
The country’s major football clubs, and their success, became an easy way to secure votes and adoration. Gabriel Amisi, a Kabila ally who was the inspector general of the Congolese army (and was accused of a wide range of human rights abuses when he was a rebel commander), was the president of AS Vita, one of Kinshasa’s biggest clubs, for 13 years until 2020. Amisi led them to three titles and a CAF Champions League semi-final.
Since the change of national president, the same pattern. Daring Club Motema Pembe and AS Vita now have club bosses who are close allies of President Felix Tshisekedi and his government. In December’s general election, Tshisekedi was announced winner with 73.5 per cent of the vote, ahead of Moïse Katumbi. Katumbi is club president of Tout Puissant Mazembe. This stuff works.
And yet, there are signs of change in a national football team that have been held back for too long, mileposts of a dissipating isolationism. In 1998, when DR Congo reached the semi-finals at Afcon, 14 of the squad were based in the domestic league and six others in Belgium. By 2015, another semi-final, six were based domestically and seven in Belgium. This year, only two of the squad play their club football in DR Congo or Belgium.
Instead, they are formed mainly from a diaspora that includes those from four of Europe’s major five leagues, plus Italy’s Serie B and top flights in Portugal, Russia, Turkey, Scotland and Switzerland. Extend this to the other 30 players called up over the last year and Luton Town, Watford, Ipswich and Burnley feature. There is a greater movement of players than ever before, and this has to be a cause for celebration.
Finally, something is building. It helps that this squad is at peak age, perhaps more than any other nation at Afcon: 18 of the 26 players are between 25 and 29.
They stuttered in the group stage, qualifying after drawing all three matches. Since then, a penalties victory over Egypt and come-from-behind 3-1 win against Guinea in the quarter-finals. And now a second semi-final in 25 years.
The theory here is that this becomes cyclical. The more success that individuals who grew up in DR Congo find in European football, the more likely scouting networks are to extend to more of this vast nation. The Katumbi Football Academy opened last year, aiming to nurture talent for TP Mazembe and, ultimately, for moves abroad to help the national team.
Reality cannot be escaped: much depends upon events beyond football. At the Virunga academy in Rumangabo, a village in North Kivu province, children train only several miles away from the operations of M23, a rebel group that the government accuses Rwanda of financially supporting. The academy members are at risk of aggression and friendship – M23 look to recruit children in the area.
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in DR Congo will completely withdraw from the country by the end of 2024. Recent escalation in the fighting between Congolese government forces and M23 continues to impact upon civilians to create a humanitarian emergency. In those circumstances, talent identification and development becomes far more difficult and isolationism can creep. You can only do so much.
The chances of DR Congo winning this tournament are still fairly slim. They will be third favourites out of four in the semi-finals. The diaspora is promising, but there is no one player to drag the team forward, and that is a curse more than it is a blessing.
But that slightly misses the point. This is about more than one tournament. Instead, we want to see the possible birth of a major sporting nation. That will take – and depend upon – a great deal more than 26 footballers and their manager. But for now, they are fitting poster boys.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/15H6LYT
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