Quote from: cande86 on Today at 01:51:18 PM

Quote from: Ale88 on Today at 03:50:46 AM

Quote from: retreat on July 14, 2025, 07:33:16 AM

Quote from: imamusma on July 13, 2025, 09:10:02 PM

It's true, many great players come from Africa, but no national team has the depth of their squad, with talented players in every position. I think that's why African countries often fail at the World Cup, especially when they reach the knockout stage. According to the FIFA rankings, Morocco, Senegal, Egypt, Algeria, and Nigeria are currently among the top five African national teams. As we know, these teams boast star players from elite European clubs, but one or two star players aren't enough to lead a team to the World Cup trophy. Morocco journey in the last World Cup was, in my opinion, impressive.
https://inside.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/men

Squad depth is indeed an important factor for a national team to compete well in the world cup. Because if a national team has only a few star players, then what happens is that when the player is injured, the team does not have a replacement and it will have a significant impact on the team's performance. Having squad depth also allows the national team to divide their playing proportion, make good rotations, and tactics that can be adjusted to the players. And because of this, the European national teams can compete better, because they not only have squad depth, but also mature tactics and game systems as well as a supportive football infrastructure from the grassroots to the highest level.

I think that African teams soon will have more players available to be called up because more and more players born in Europe by African parents are choosing to represent their parents' national team. This for sure would affect more countries like France, Belgium, England, just to name a few, countries that usually rely a lot on players of African background.

I don't think that kids born in prestigious national teams will choose to play for their parents' national team, with all due respect, it's one thing to play for France and another to play for Mali, mine is just an example but it gives a good idea.

Well, Hakimi was born and raised in Madrid and yet he chose to play for Morocco, and when he began playing for the Moroccan national team they were quite average, same with his teammate Ibrahim Diaz. Koulibaly was born in France and chose to represent Senegal, I still remember when during a press conference Deschamps said he was considering calling him up for the team and someone had to remind him that he was already playing for Senegal Grin

Of course the majority of these players will go with the stronger team but there is a small change in this trend.