Even for a player who remains the only man to have three World Cup winners’ medals it was a bold prediction. “An African nation will win the World Cup before the year 2000,” declared Pelé – who had been persuaded to come out of retirement to play for New York Cosmos by Henry Kissinger three years earlier – on the eve of his final match in October 1977.
Nearly five decades have passed since then and while there has undoubtedly been progress on the global stage, an African team has yet to smash through the ceiling of the quarter-finals. Morocco, led by the wily tactician Walid Regragui, will become the latest to attempt to go where Cameroon in 1990, Senegal in 2002 and – most heartbreakingly – Ghana in 2010 failed and reach the last four when they face Portugal on Saturday.
