WORLD CUP 2006
Togo
Introduction
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Togo’s qualification for the finals was one of a number of surprises in Africa’s preliminaries, but the turn of events since has been all too predictable. Although coach Stephen Keshi acquired hero status for steering the Togolese to their first World Cup, he was fired in January after the team lost all three games at the African Nations Cup. The tournament, which had offered Togo the chance to prove their status as an emerging force in African football, turned into a nightmare and set off a series of events that mean the side will be under-prepared when they arrive in Germany.
Keshi’s cause at the Egypt finals was not helped by a clash with temperamental star player Emmanuel Adebayor, whom the coach felt had failed to pull his weight in the preparations for the tournament. Keshi said as much and dropped the Arsenal striker for the opening game, on the grounds that Adebayor had missed much of the training camp while finalising his transfer from Monaco to Highbury.
But after informing Adebayor of his decision, Keshi then changed his mind and named the striker for the first game. The star’s petulant reaction was to refuse to play, and he then gave a tirade of abuse against the coach that soured the rest of the tournament for the Togolese.
In the battle of wills, it was Adebayor, the scorer of 10 goals in the World Cup qualifiers, who emerged triumphant, but it is likely the team will be losers in the long run.
In Keshi’s stead comes an old Africa hand in the form of German coach Otto Pfister. But he will not have had a chance to work with any of his new players before he is forced to name his squad by the May 15 deadline. He only gets them together for the first time for a friendly against Saudi Arabia in Holland on May 14.
Arguably, it is the most bizarre preparation any side have been through for a modern-era World Cup, and it leaves Togo with the potential to be nothing more than whipping boys for their group opponents, France, South Korea and Switzerland. Comparisons are being drawn with the last African side to play at a World Cup in Germany, Zaire, who conceded a deluge of goals against polished opposition in 1974.
Even without the Nations Cup disaster and Keshi’s exit, the team would be struggling to put in a credible World Cup effort, given their limited playing resources. Togo have unashamedly “borrowed” players with even tenuous links to the tiny west African country from neighbours Ghana and Nigeria to bolster the squad. Their lack of strength in depth was all too evident in Egypt as they suffered their whitewash.
Presumably now lost, too, are the attributes that got them to Germany in the first place – a solid group spirit and increasing self-belief, which had allowed them to top their qualifying group ahead of the more fancied Senegal and Zambia.
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