{"id":22356,"date":"2026-01-13T11:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T09:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/african-coaches-to-the-fore-at-cup-of-nations\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:33:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:33:22","slug":"african-coaches-to-the-fore-at-cup-of-nations","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/african-coaches-to-the-fore-at-cup-of-nations\/","title":{"rendered":"African coaches to the fore at Cup of Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\" data-olk-copy-source=\"MessageBody\">Four African coaches will take charge of the semi-finalists at this year&#8217;s Africa Cup of Nations, disproving the popular local notion that they are given few opportunities on their own continent.<\/div>\n<div id=\"x_ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Pape Bouna Thiaw leads Senegal against Egypt, coached by their prolific former striker Hossam Hassan, in the first semi-final in Tangiers on Wednesday, followed by hosts Morocco, under Walid Regragui, against Nigeria, who have Former-Mali international Eric Chelle on their bench.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">The only other time the final four sides were managed by Africans was in 1965, and African coaches have long complained they are often overlooked for national team jobs in favour of Europeans or South Americans with mediocre credentials.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>\u201cThere have often been situations where African coaches have not been able to get jobs because federations and clubs prefer Europeans, but that seems to be changing a bit,\u201d said former Ghana international Kwesi Appiah, who led Sudan to a last-16 place.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">He was one of three African coaches taking charge of a team different from his own nationality at the finals in Morocco, a new phenomenon for the tournament.<\/div>\n<div class=\"x_text-module__text__0GDob x_text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 x_text-module__regular__qJJtA x_text-module__small__sph8i x_body-module__full_width__kCIGb x_body-module__small_body__gOmDf x_article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\">\u201cI think there is a responsibility too for the African coaches to prove their worth with hard work,\u201d Appiah told Reuters.<\/div>\n<div>This is the third successive Cup of Nations where African coaches outnumber foreigners. In Morocco, there have been 14 African managers, nine from Europe and one from Argentina.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Foreign coaches had previously dominated with only six of the first 32 editions of the tournament boasting a majority of local coaches.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Many European coaches have launched their careers in Africa but only a handful have returned to high-profile jobs in their own countries, like Roger Lemerre, who spent time managing in Tunisia before winning the 2000 European Championship with France, and Philippe Troussier, who had a brief and unsuccessful stint at Olympique de Marseille after working in five different African nations and Japan.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">When it comes to lifting the trophy, however, the statistics favour African coaches who have masterminded 18 Afcon titles to 16 for teams coached by foreigners. Africa\u2019s number will increase again after Sunday\u2019s final.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21698,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,20],"class_list":["post-22356","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Foreign coaches had previously dominated with only six of the first 32 editions.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Foreign coaches had previously dominated with only six of the first 32 editions","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25680,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/22356\/revisions\/25680"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=22356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}