ELEPHANTASTIC: FINAL VERDICT ON AFCON 2015: it was everything we expected, but not quite what we hoped for

The Elephant in the Room: Ivory Coast celebrate AFCON2015

AFCON 2015. The tournament that should never have taken place. The tournament that defied expectations. The tournament that defied Ebola. The tournament that defied logic, right down to that extraordinary penalty shoot-out after a drab final.

It’s only football. We know that. The Ivory Coast Elephants were always the heavyweights. But the ups and downs in Equatorial Guinea over the past three weeks have been even more knuckle whitening than normal, surely?

The lows? We’d have to start with South Africa’s own fortunes in Mongomo, ancestral home of the despot President Theodorin Obiang, in charge since 1979 and grinding his people in to the ground. Bafana Bafana couldn’t even conjure a win in Group A as they ground us into the ground.

They went out of the tournament with one point and a desperate record equalled in its awfulness only by Burkina Faso. Yet they led in all three games. Heart-breaking.

Still, as I said when the draw for this African Cup of Nations was made, the limited talents of Shakes Mashaba were never going to get us out of Group C once the dodgy hosts had got their hands on Issa Hayatou’s warmed balls. Pity Ephraim forgot to check who was actually in the Group of Death before he started laughing it off and – laughably – promising a repeat of our great 1996 triumph.

On Saturday, under thermo-nuclear levels of secrecy, Mashaba reported to the SAFA technical committee, dominated (unusually) by Natascha Tshichlas, Ria Ledwaba and Fran Hilton-Smith, Danny Jordaan’s three princesses.

I’m told Shakes was rapped over the knuckles for his treatment of young foreign stars Thulani Serero and Kamahelo Mokotjo and told the search for a modern, highly qualified Technical Director remained a priority. I bet he didn’t like that. Still, he wore a lot of nice shirts during the tournament, between goalkeeper changes.

While South Africans came back down to earth after that fabulous unbeaten qualifying success which left champions Nigeria in disarray, we have had to watch the knock-out stages dominated by Equatorial Guinea cheating, Africa’s No 1 Algeria under-performing and Tunisia sulking.

Weapons of destruction: missiles thrown by fans on Thursday

And then came that awful semi-final. I said on twitter Ghana looked reluctant to add a third goal against the hosts in last Thursday’s second semi-final and BOOM, when they went 3-0 up, we were treated to awful scenes from the home crowd in a nation where so many live beneath the bread line yet still throw plates when they’re angry.

Actually, we missed most of the nastiness which left 14 Ghanaian fans in hospital, the Dictatorial Guinea television producers wouldn’t allow us to see the crowd trouble, the missile throwing, the real nastiness.

And when the final came around on Sunday night, the host nation were denied live coverage of their own tournament at the death. Unbelievable. While commentators and analysts praised long-serving Presidents Obiang and Issa Hayatou, African football slipped to a new nadir with trouble exploding before Zamelek’s game in Egypt just as the final kicked off.

It's a mess. Tunisia have yet to apologise for their accusations of bias after Dictatorial Guinea’s dodgy late penalty in the quarter-final and Morocco, the hosts who pulled out over Ebola fears (but still hosted FIFA’s Club World Cup) are out for the next two AFCONS.

The host nation were given a mere slap on the wrist for their half-hour of mayhem. They were fined $100,000 while Tunisia and Morocco face bills of millions; and Equatoria Guinea played their 3^rd place play off WITH fans, losing to the DRC in an eminently missable consolation clash.

Sadly, much of the “dream final” between Ghana and Cote D’Ivoire was eminently missable too. The highlights? Ghana’s Christian Atsu, the Chelsea striker on loan with a cushion at Everton, hit the post, Ivory Coast coach Herve Renard wore a nice pink tabard and a clearly unfit Asamoah Gyan managed to stamp on an Elephant without punishment.

It was always going to go to penalties, and the drab 120 minutes was soon forgotten as Ghana took a 2-0 lead after four penalties, blew it… and the goalkeepers decided it with 35-year-old Boubacar 'Copa' Barry scoring where his counterpart Razak Braimah failed.

After 22 penalties Barry, a last-minute replacement, was the bemused hero. Asamoah Gyan, the Ghana captain who came off with a minute to play and missed the penalty shoot-out, may well turn out to be the scapegoat, as he was at the World Cup in 2010.

In essence, it was a repeat of the 1992 final, with the Ivory Coast ironically turning the Orange Africa Cup of Nations in to a feast of orange. Yaya Toure lifted the trophy while Andre Ayew wept inconsolably, remembering his father Abedi Pele’s upset when he missed out on the same final 23 years ago.

For Ghana coach Avram Grant, in his lucky blue polo shirt, barely a flicker of emotion. He lost the Champions League final with Chelsea when John Terry fluffed his penalty against Manchester United in Moscow. He’s used to heartbreak.

AFCON WINNER: goalkeeper Barry is carried aloft

Herve Renard, the first man to win AFCON with two different nations, said: “It’s coming from God, but you have to be strong. I believe in history and I’m a lucky coach.

“We are strong because everybody worked very hard. Didier Drogba didn’t win this cup with Ivory Coast, it’s a shame he’s not there. It’s a shame he’s not here. I’d like to give him part of this, dedicate it to him.

“You don’t achieve something in one month, the team spirit made the difference. I discovered (Ghana’s) Andre Ayew at a young age, I felt sorry for him but he’ll be back.”

Ghana coach Avram Grant groaned: “It’s painful to lose and be the better side on the pitch. When you win you can say anything, this is football. Penalties are painful. It’s not the first time this has happened to me.

“We have a good team for the present. In a short time we did a lot of good things. We are crying now, they gave good heart, good football. Good for the future.”

Former Arsenal veteran Kolo Toure, now with Liverpool, said: “Penalties are all about God to me. We waited a long time for this. My generation waited for 23 years. I’d like to dedicate this win to my brother who died during the World Cup.”

In summary, AFCON 2015 was exactly what we expected, though not quite what we might have hoped for. From the moment Morocco withdrew, we knew Equatorial Guinea would be hard-pressed to run the show without a hitch.

A pitch invasion and a drab final won’t spoil the memories for Ivorians. But for Ghanaians and South Africans, we move on. And hopefully for uapologetic Tunisia and 7 times winners Egypt – where 14 died in violence before a Zamalek game last night – there will be a brighter future too.

But to be honest what would really cheer me up: a free and fair election in Dictatorial Guinea. But I guess that's too much to ask.

Benni McCarthy Scores For QPR But Will They Take Him Off West Ham's Hands as the new loan ranger?

Benni McCarthy’s canny knack of scoring goals may have secured a loan move to Championship leaders Queens Park Rangers this week.

The 33-year-old, frustrated at current club West Ham where Avram Grant refuses to even grant him a place on the bench, was allowed to play in a reserve friendly for QPR against Spurs on Tuesday.

And South Africa’s all-time top-scorer promptly scored despite a heavy 9-2 defeat against a tough Spurs second string side that included Republic of Ireland striker Robbie Keane, England centre-back Jonathan Woodgate and young Jamie O’Hara.

Ironically, cash-rich West London outfit QPR – backed by steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and Formula One moguls Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briattore – could replace EastEnd strugglers West Ham in the Premier League in May.

McCarthy’s agent Rob Moore is believed to be “in talks” with QPR boss Neil Warnock. The deal appears to involve McCarthy moving on loan, with QPR paying most of his £50,000-a-week salary until May.

If he scores the goals to help QPR gain promotion back to the top flight for the first time since 1996, he will be signed on a full-term basis.

Warnock, a shrewd, experienced boss who gave up his day job as a chiropodist when he took non-League minnows Scarborough into the Football League way back in 1986, is urgently seeking a goal-getter for the second half of the season, having lost two strikers - Jamie Mackie and Patrick Agyemangboth – with broken legs before the New Year.

McCarthy was signed from Blackburn Rovers by Gian Franco Zola for £2.5m last January but a knee injury suffered on his debut wrecked his Upton Park career. By the time he had battled back to fitness, he had been fined for putting on weight by new club owner David Sullivan, missed the World Cup in his own country, and dour Israeli Grant had replaced the flamboyant Zola.

Despite assurances from his agent Moore that the Capetonian “has been at the right weight since October”, Grant rarely even gives McCarthy a glimpse of the bench. If he leaves this week, he will go without a single goal for West Ham’s first team. In a year, he has made just 13 appearances for West Ham, with 10 of those as a substitute.

Meanwhile Steven Pienaar’s transfer to Tottenham, first predicted by this writer three months ago, was confirmed on the club’s official website yesterday.

Pienaar, who will wear the No40 shirt at Spurs when Spurs play Newcastle on Saturday, twittered yesterday: “Saying final goodbyes at Everton tomorrow. It’s not easy after many great years. Thanks to all the fans, you have been brilliant.”

Pienaar said of his first appearance at Tottenham’s Chigwell training facility yesterday: “Friendly reception from players yesterday. Michael Dawson first to say hello then Rafa (van der Vaart, his former team-mate at Ajax in Amsterdam). Great to team up with him, he's been great this season.”

Portsmouth: The Road To Ruin (and I don't mean the roadwork infested A3 from London)

For whom the chimes toll: Witnessing the demise of proud Pompey

THE noise from the Pompey fans was incessant. The antique shop owner with the drum, the bloke with the bell, the endless chants. Didn't stop for 90 minutes. But it still ended Portsmouth 0, Chelsea 5.

When your club is bottom of the Premier League, you've been docked nine points and the ball bobbles over your goalkeeper's foot, even faithful support counts for nothing.

My son Kriss and I made the journey down the A3 more in hope than in expectation - though the boy did put a fiver on Portsmouth at 33-1 to beat the title-chasing Blues 2-1.

Instead it was a midly depressing high five for Chelsea. Their former boss Avram Grant, who took the club to within a John Terry penalty of success in Europe a couple of years ago, could not rouse his financially-troubled club to the same level as the billionaires from Stamford Bridge.

Afterwards Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti talked about "a good performance" and suggested his side's slump was over.

But of course, last night was no indication of footballing superiority or form. Manchester United remain favourites for the Premier League title, Arsenal and Chelsea are likely to scrap it out for second and third, though it will be tight.

No, last night was about money. About the reckless spending which went on at dear old Fratton Park under a succession of fly-by-night owners and a chief executive who couldn't say no.

Some might suggest it all started to go wrong when David James, England's 39-year-old World Cup hopeful, swung a foot and missed the ball as it bobbled outside his area, allowing Drogba to stroll through and score the first.

Goals two, three, four and five followed in the second half as Drogba doubled his tally, the in-form Florent Malouda added a brace of his own and Frank Lampard headed past a quagmired James.

The fans blamed the referee, Malouda's flying elbow, perhaps even the unfortunate lump of turf just outside the box.

But in truth, their season - apart from the FA Cup semi-final against Spurs (they beat Fulham 3-1 in their quarter-final replay last night) - is over. And performances like last night won't help their cup hopes.

In truth, the Portsmouth fans turned out to just about fill their quaint 20,000-capacity stadium to mark the end of an era. Glittering Premier League stars and exotic international footballers won't be travelling down the A3 for much longer. They may not be down on the south coast for some time judging by the current positions of Portsmouth and arch-rivals Southampton.

And the great injustice is this: a proud heritage dating back to the 1890s has been ruined not by a lack of footballing nouse but by a chronic breakdown in financial accounting.

Ironically, on the day Labour produced the final budget of their topsy-turvy reign, Portsmouth were on hand to show just how a financially mismanaged organisation can collapse into chaos.

And make no mistake, chaos awaits. The fire-sale allowed by the Premier League yesterday will see their best players leave outside the transfer window.

At the end of the season, the foreign journeymen will leave in their droves, Grant won't be taken for Granted and the club will be left bereft.

And Pompey, proud Pompey with their chimes, will struggle to put together a squad capable of surviving in the Championship, let alone surge straight back into the Premier League.

Something has to be wrong somewhere.

Time for a bit of Pomp and ceremony... lets back Portsmouth to beat Chelsea tonight. My boy and I will be there!

TONIGHT, while the rest of you Philistines are cosily nestled on your sofas or murdering people on your X-boxes, my son Kriss and I will be in Portsmouth, home of the worm-eaten HMS Victory and the saddest football club in Britain.

Destroyed by a succession of owners and profligate spending, Portsmouth FC are doomed to relegation following their nine-point deduction for going into administration.

The luckless Israeli coach Avram Grant must lead his hopeless side out against the biggest-spending club in Britain, Chelsea, backed by his old mate Roman Abramovich.

Yes, the billionaire Russian who dropped him despite the fact unloved Grant took Chelsea to within a John Terry penalty of winning the Champions League against Manchester United in Moscow. And he only fell two points short of the Premier League title.

Grant stood strong after Jose Mourinho's sacking and Big Phil Scolari's embarrassing departure. He left to be replaced by more fashionable men like Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti, who have not managed to get close to his heights.

Grant arrived at Portsmouth full of hope, replacing the popular Paul Hart... only to find the rug pulled from under his feet by banks and massage parlours.

Despite all this, Grant's men produced a stunning come-from-behind 3-2 win against Burnley on Saturday to keep hope alive, to keep the Pompey chimes clanging.

Without the nine-point deduction and despite a fine FA Cup run, they would only be five points off safety were it not for the cruel points deduction.

And tonight he must do it again, when he comes up against his former stars Didier Drobga, John Terry, Frank Lampard et al.

Kriss, 22, and I won't be the only ones shuffling up Frogmore Road to the dilapidated Fratton Park, capacity a measly 20,224, hoping for a miracle.

My father Bob, 77 this week, will be praying for them too. He watched them win the First Division title in 1949 and 1950 when they got crowds of over 50,000. He watches them every week on Supersport in South Africa hoping for a miracle, sending pleading texts hoping they will survive the current crisis.

As Arsenal fans, Kriss and I hope for a miracle too, as do the billions of Manchester United fans from Surrey to Salford.

And of course, for West Ham fans - still reeling after last night's emphatic defeat at the hands of fellow relegation candidates Wolves - there will be support for the hopelessly marooned club. Hope that they will carry on until the death, taking points off the others down the bottom.

It's so wrong what's happened at Portsmouth. FIFA's Sepp Blatter and UEFA's Michael Platini, not the most popular men in world football, have both warned against the massive borrowing behind England's Premier League clubs.

Manchester United and Chelsea themselves rely on a series of nifty accountants to keep afloat despite the spending. West Ham are suffering because Davids Gold and Sullivan have curtailed spending since they assumed ownership.

But for Portsmouth it's too late. The club can barely function. They've sacked half their staff... kit men, tea makers, bottle washers.

Too much money has been spent in hope rather than in expectation. Chief exec Peter Storrie (and a certain coach called Harry Redknapp) splashed the cash under a series of fly-by-night owners, leaving the historic dockyard club on the verge of sinking forever.

Victory - or even a point - for Portsmouth tonight won't just be a miracle. It would be a triumph for the ordinary football fan. The ones who care more about their clubs than the £40,000-a-week arrival of yet another foreign journeyman.

We travel in hope. A crusade from Buckinghamshire to Hampshire made without any real expectation of success.

But that's football. Real football. Forget the Glazers, Hicks & Gillett, Abramovich and the rest. If this nation has a footballing soul, everybody should back Portsmouth against Chelsea tonight in the battle of the Blues. For a billion reasons.

Pomp and circumstance combine to give FA Cup a revival Avram won't take for Granted. Now they've got Spurs or Fulham and it's Villa v Chelsea

IN case you missed it on ITV (ah, that's where they're hiding the FA Cup quarter-finals, I hear you say), Portsmouth, the world's poorest club, are through to the semi-finals of football's oldest knock-out competition.

They play the winners of the Fulham v Spurs replay (after an eminently missable quarter-final yesterday) while Aston Villa take on holders Chelsea in the other semi.

But Pompey are the focus. Incredible. The FA Cup may have passed you by this season (apart from the monumental Leeds win over Manchester United from which Leeds have never really recovered) but Pompey, in administration and rock-bottom of the Premier League, are still in there battling.

A place in the last four and a semi at Wembley won't save the club. They won the competition two years ago in a low-key final against Cardiff and still plunged into a desperate position within 18 months.

But the money they earned from yesterday's unexpected 2-0 win over a deeply unhappy Birmingham (about £1m) won't harm the club's chances of bouncing straight back up next season.

Mind you, acccording to Paul Smith in today's Sunday Mirror, Pompey will make half their staff redundant tomorrow, so serious is their financial plight.

Former Chelsea boss Avram Grant, the Israeli equally famous for his rousing massages rather than his rabble-raising messages this season, is unlikely to be there as the club battles tax bills and debts of around £70million but Pompey fans will be more concerned about whether the club can hold on to Frederic Piquionne, who got both goals yesterday.

Grant, who has struggled through the club's problems admirably, said: 'You can break many things, but you cannot break our spirit. This meant a lot to me.'

'I came into this game because of the passion and emotion. It makes me proud to see the fans so happy. I have had many happy moments but this is one of the best.'

Portsmouth go to the High Court on March 15 where the tax man will attempt to end the 112-year history of Portsmouth FC but this remarkable triumph may just help persuade people that the club is a viable concern, despite all those debts, five owners in a year and a Fratton Park ground which looks like something out of an Antiques Roadshow.

It may also help to raise the profile of a tournament which has really struggled this year. After Manchester United's failure against Leeds, Arsenal plunged out to Manchester City and last week all four fifth round replays were absent from the television as ITV preferred, understandably, to cover Chelsea's Champions League clash with Jose Mourinho's Inter Milan.

If ever a club and a competition deserved a miracle, it's the FA Cup. Come on Pompey.

I must declare an interest. My dad Bob has supported the Blues since before the war. The thought of the club folding is simply unacceptable.

So too is the thought of Portsmouth going out to Spurs, assuming they beat Roy Hodgson's stubborn Fulham in a replay people won't be rushing to watch. My old boss Hodgson knows how to ruin flowing football - he was a very average full-back but has a great footballing brain - but I can't see them surviving at White Hart Lane.

So Redknapp, the former Southampton boss who twice spent an awful lot of money at Portsmouth, will go to Wembley intent on knocking a final nail or two in a very Blue season. No guessing who I'll be backing.

Villa came from 2-0 down to see off plucky Reading 4-2, Chelsea were never really threatened by Stoke with Frank Lampard and John Terry scoring the goals in a 2-0 romp. Afterwards we were treated to a topless Terry being asked anodyne questions about the captain's armband.

Of for a decent question at that point like: "What point are you trying to make with the captain's armband John - that Fabio Capello should never have taken the England captaincy away from you for your lack of morals?"

Mind you, Carlos Tevez, the man who said Terry "would lose his legs or worse" for his tinkering with Wayne Bridge's missus, has been exposed in the Sunday Mirror today for seeing some blonde while his wife Vanesa is at home in Argentina tending to their premature child.

To be honest, the whole tabloid-footballer-sex scandal thing is getting tedious - The Sun did Patrice Evra on Saturday - just wish there wasn't a market for it.

Honest prediction for the FA Cup? Chelsea beating Spurs in the last big domestic event before the World Cup. And Arsenal sneaking up on the rails to take the Premier League crown after Manchester United's lacklustre 1-0 win over Wolves yesterday.
PPS: My good friend and chef Gavin Billenness - the next Jamie Oliver - has produced a recipe for "manly" sports nuts to try (at my request, the kids are tired of meatballs). I'll be sweating over the hot oven soon: http://gavinbillenness.blogspot.com/2010/03/penne-with-chorizo-and-tomato.html