The rise of continents football “Underdogs” at AFCON 2021

The Africa Cup of Nations (Cameroon 2021) is ongoing and already, this is creating so much excitement on the continent, bringing communities together to celebrate the beautiful game of football. I recall the level of jubilation on the streets of Freetown when the Leone Stars from Sierra Leone held the Elephants of Ivory Coast to a 2:2 draw. Earlier, they held the previous Champions Algeria to a goalless draw in the group E encounter. Algeria ended up finishing bottom in the group with only one (1) point and a goal to take home.

In fact, Tuesday, January 18, 2022 will pass off as one of the infamous days in the history of Ghanaian football. Not only because a small Island Nation with less than a million people and one of the least populous country on the continent gave the great “football mighty” African Nation of Ghana an unforgettable lesson in football, but the sheer zeal and purpose with which they went about their business on the day even gave bookmakers a taste of their own pill.

Prior to this success, not much was known in terms of past record of the football prowess of Comoros beyond beautiful beaches and tourist attractions of the island nation they had to offer. The over thirty (30) million citizen “coaches & players” of Ghana will be reeling from this missed opportunity and I have already seen social media awash with critical media reports, pundits’ reviews, football enthusiasts’ commentary and articulated post mortem assessments of the overall campaign.

Many will argue that the feat chalked by this “unregarded underdog” football nation was partly bolstered by the early sending-off of Ghana’s captain – Andre Dede Ayew only in the 25th minute of the game, weakening the team and by extension the quest of Ghana wrestling and salvaging the already dying campaign.

For a “MIGHTY” team like Ghana, beating a tiny less fancied nation like the Comoros was not much of an ask. However, a deeper, honest, self-introspection will show that the abysmal performance of the Black Stars had all the writings on the wall even before a ball was kicked at the tournament and the game’s last disaster was the icing on the cake of unpreparedness.

Interestingly, Comoros’ success over Ghana only follows the evidently well-rehearsed blue print of the performances show-cased by the other “underdog” nations and giant killers at this year’s tournament - Sierra Leone, Gabon, Malawi, the Gambia with the biggest other casualty being Algeria with Senegal escaping an early exit by a whimper.

Despite the tournament only gathering momentum with the round of 16 paring looking interesting and the “perfect” Nigeria kicked out by Tunisia, we look forward to more twist and turns and shocks as the tournament progresses. There are many lessons thoroughout the tournament. I will like to share five (5) key takeaways from these performances;

Lesson #1. Drive the sale to the end.

Using the Comoros game as an example, prior to the Ghana game, Comoros had no point and reports were that they had their bags packed up ready to jump on the next flight back to their island nation, in fact book makers put the odds of their chances of winning at 35% in favour of Ghana.

With Ghana coming to the game from two disappointing defeats as wounded lions, playing relatively stronger teams (in comparison to the Comoros) and losing and drawing at the very last minutes in these games, the job for the Black Stars was pretty much cut out but the opponent had other ideas. They knew the task ahead and played like their lives depended on it. Indeed, one commentator remarked that “Comoros looked like Brazil on steroid at a World Cup Finals” and looked like beating Ghana was a trophy in itself.

Closing out the sale is the most important and critical component of every sales activity. The fact is that selling without a close is a waste of everyone’s time - The team was focused, driven and knew that only three (3) points gave them a dog’s chance but beating the Black Stars was a better motivation –closing the sale! A sales team’s primary objective is to make the sale, seal the deal – almost closing doesn’t count! Comoros did just that when it mattered most.

Lesson #2. Fear Not The ‘’Mighty’’

Be better than the best and quick to deliver in your areas of strength to stay on top, organizations large or small must realize that today’s customers' needs vary, are dynamic, diverse and personal hence speed of service is a key indicator of whether a customer stays with you or moves on to competition. Loyalty has become a farce and organizations must plan to keep-up with their most valuable assets lest they lose them to the feisty competition. The proverbial “fortune favours the prepared” holds more true now than ever and leading the market is no longer a guarantee and right of place. Recognize leaders in the market but plan and invest in impactful strategies that chip away market dominance

In the case of the “underdogs” performance at the AFCON - unlike previous tournaments, it has become obvious that, lesser-known teams are critically investing in key areas of the game and the increasing revenue potential of the sport is propelling these investments. Today, on the back of these investments, lesser-known teams are blurring the dominance line as they continue to invest heavily in infrastructure, talent identification and development, setting mile-stone focused goals and blurring the lines between the MIGHTY and the MINNOWS. Leading organizations should recognize that business as usual is no longer an option to be considered as competition is always looking to pounce on vulnerabilities and opportunities. Organizations at all levels should continue to scan the market, focus on areas of strength and perfect the art of delivering excellence.

Lesson #3. Continuous Improvement must be an everyday goal

One of the key lessons to takeaway brings one of my favourite quotes to life, “It is usually not the big that eats the small but the fast that eats the slow” Continuous improvement is the art of continually looking to improve a process, product or service through small steps. Apart from the benefits of Increased productivity, better teamwork and morale, greater agility, less waste, more efficiency, increased customer satisfaction and increase in profit, the below are simple steps to follow:

• Phase 1 “Plan”: Plan for change and identify improvement opportunities.
• Phase 2 “Do”: Implement changes identified, tweak where necessary.
• Phase 3 “Study”: Check to determine if the change had the desired outcome, if not change again.
• Phase 4 “Act”: If successful, implement across the organization and process.

Synonymous to most of the “underdog” teams at the tournaments, there have been some noticeable deliberateness about how they went about their business and executed their plans; studying the opponents, playing to their strength and executing when it mattered most was the key differentiator.

Take Sierra Leone for example- who had never been to AFCON in 25years. They started off their campaign with meeting the defending champions Algeria; with 35 games unbeaten run, this is after they (Algeria) had beaten Ghana 3:0 in their preparation match and was beaming with confidence to successfully defend their title. Sierra Leone managed the opponent, played to their strength, capitalized on their defensive superiority and depended on the heroics of the goalie, with the minutes passing by, the defending champions could not find a way around a team who had taken time to plan, study, do the business and act it out.

Organizations must live this DNA of continuously improving all aspects of their processes in service to the people they serve; that is the surest way to guarantee continuous market dominance, progression and revenue performance.

Lesson #4. Complacency is Weakness

Ghana’s entire campaign was fraught with series of challenges, from the selection of the team, poor personnel management, leadership deficiencies, lack of focus and inability to learn from failures are some of the issues the team was faced with. In posture and execution, it was evident that Ghana acted as though qualification was out of right and not to break out complacency.

In fact, after the goalless drawn game with Gabon, the captain of the side – Andre Dede Ayew was quoted as saying that, “Ghana will beat Comoros and qualify”. It is one thing to make these bold claims as organizations, but the more challenging work is to put in the work, strategies and work on actually delivering on the business. I am sure team Comoros may have read and watched the Ghana game, was gingered by the demeaning remarks of team Ghana and focused on playing the best game of their lives to prove that they are no push-overs and also make footballing history. On the day, they did just that when it mattered most with no pressure to perform, they defeated a BIG team with complacency and delivered the vital 3 points at stake to make the round of 16 as one of the least qualifying third – placed teams.

The key lessons learned here is to trust the process as individual, focus on delivery, recognize competition and plan every day for it, and implement a robust scenario analysis of competition, market and the industry and how to take advantage when the opportunity presents itself.

Lesson #5. Do it today, tomorrow may be too late

There is always the tendency to put off for tomorrow what can be done today. With the advent and continuous impact of the global COVID 19 pandemic there are no guarantees whatsoever for dominance in any aspect for organizations. Indeed, as human beings, our very existence has been threatened in many ways than one and today in the market place, “You eat what You Kill”. That is why it is a fact that organizations continue to re-invent themselves in multiple new ways to stay relevant and grow.

For the Ghana Black star’s, a new dawn is beckoning to reform the entire Management. Preparation for Nigeria and Qatar must begin today, not tomorrow although I do not agree that the sacking of the Black Stars’ coach is the panacea to solving the team’s problems but it is the first step to cleansing and the re-birth of the one-time giant of Africa. In the case of organizations, continuous investment in all aspects of the organization (People, Processes, Technology, Customer-centricity) and leadership should be paramount, deliberate and intentional.

This rude awakening should provide a platform to collectively calm all heads, encourage self-introspection for the football associations management and the entire playing body to soberly reflect and come back again to beat Nigeria at the World cup play-offs in March, 2022.

As the appetizing round of 16 and quarters continue, we can only wish the rest of the teams well. I am routing for the “underdogs” to continue to give us reason to celebrate and most importantly learn on the values espoused to guide self and our organizations in strife to achieve individual and collective goals.

May the best team win AFCON 2021.

The Writer profile:

Philip Owusu-Gyamfi

The writer has previously worked with American Tower Corporation (ATC Towers) in Ghana & Uganda, IHS Towers in Nigeria and in six other African countries leading Commercial Business Development in Telecommunications, Investment & Corporate banking and Sales & Marketing. He is currently a Corporate banking senior business team lead working for a major multinational Financial institution in Ghana.

He can be reached on +233 207 608 715 and Email: [email protected]