I just discovered an amazingly comprehensive blog about Zambian football, and thought there might be potential readers here:
http://www.zambianfootball.net/

thanks Bomba... this is the reason why I love wsc/otf so much.

I will go to bed tonight tired but happy in the knowledge that the Zambian national team's nickname is the Chipolopolo Boys.

Although i could probably have found that out on wikipedia, if I'd been bothered to look.

Chipolopolo means "silver bullets" or something, doesn't it?

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Ah, copper bullets. Figures. Lots of copper mines in Zambia.

On the old Championship Manager games (right after he moved to Arsenal or whoever) Rob Earnshaw always chose to start his international career with Zambia.

That was the sum total of my knowledge on Zambian football... before tonight.

Nice one Bomba.

I'm guessing your interest in Zambian football has been aroused by attempting to find out more about the five lads turning out for RoPS, including this chap:



39-year-old Zeddy Saileti.

I think they could squeeze a couple more sponsors on that shirt actually.

Great link, Bombanero.

I've been thinking that I need to learn more about African football for awhile. I kept thinking during last year's AFC that I should know more about these teams, but there's almost no good print sources (though there's that new WSC book out soon...) and so you kind of have to go through newspaper sites like allafrica.com to find out what's new, what's happening, etc. But I doubt I'd have the discipline to do this myself.

So, this might sound kinda nerdy...or a lot nerdy...but is anyone else interested in becoming more knowledgeable about African football? If so, would they like a study partner or be interested in doing a bit of a study group?

There was some banana-chucking at HJK last week CTT, and some pathetic justifications on message boards that the RoPS players are 'mercenaries' with 'no connection to their team'. Saileti has been at RoPS for 14 years, and recently took on coaching duties. Fair fucks to him, I wouldn't live in Rovaniemi if I could possibly avoid it, especially not during the mosquito season.

Compare and contrast to HJK, who signed ageing polish lump Tamasz Sajdak in order to avoid giving Helsinki lad Jarno Parikka a chance.

And no, it was just sent to me by my new competitor, http://finnishfootball.blogspot.com. That's another excellent site with loads of transfer news and stats, written by a young lad in Rovaniemi.

Gramsci, I am happy to admit that I am nerdy enough when it comes to football to go in with you on that venture. The re-launched African Soccer magazine (recently featured on Goldstone's site as well as The Run of Play) may also be worth looking at in this regard.

Nobody else?

OK, Urs, how do you think we should procede? Pick a few countries each, see what we can come up with and report back? If so, I dibs Uganda and Tanzania.

Or more thematic approach?

I can't find African Soccer anywhere here - I may have to subscribe.

Maybe in the winter, when I only have university stuff on and nothing vitally important. Like Jaro v VPS in the big Ostrobothnian derby, or TPS away at Odense in the second round of the Intertoto Cup.

If you do this, maybe you could blog the results?

I will try to blog the results. I'm not bad at blogging during the summer. Or, rather, I used not to be. We'll see how it goes.

I was assuming I would have to subscribe.

I think we need to be careful about being too ambitious. Is the focus to be on club football or national teams?

In either event, I would be willing to try Algeria, Morocco and Cameroon. Perhaps we can get G-Man to do South Africa.

I would prefer learning something about the history of the game in each country, and something about the clubs, and the rivalries.
I know in Cameroon, for instance, there are anglophone and francophone clubs - are they antagonistic? In Nigeria, where ethnic identity is very important, have there ever been Ibo-Hausa or Ibo-Yourba or Hausa-Yoruba club rivalries as Dinamo and Partizan were in the old Yugoslavia? Why or why not?

Those are the kinds of things that intrigue me most. I am less interested (but not uninterested) in the national teams.