In March, at the new Stadium of Cote d'Or in the island nation of Mauritius, southwest of the Indian Ocean, a handful of fans clung to the wire fence to watch a football match that had not been seen for more than a year: the qualifying rounds for the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations Qualifiers, where Mauritius faces Sao Tome at home, the winners will enter the qualifying stages of the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, and the losers will experience a two-year window of competition.
Cote d'Or Stadium is a national stadium in Mauritius jointly funded by China and Saudi Arabia, which features swimming pools, athletics tracks, judo stadiums and first-class artificial turf football pitches. The venue was officially put into use this year, the first important event, is the two-legged football match between Mauritius and Sao Tome, because Sao Tome does not have a venue certified by FIFA as suitable for international football matches, so these two rounds of matches are arranged in Mauritius, Mauritius should have successfully defeated Sao Tome with the help of home advantages, but the team performance was not ideal under the long-term battle, a defensive mistake, Sao Tome's striker Luis Lyle scored, the two-legged match ended, Mauritius lost 3-4 on aggregate (0-1 in the first leg, 3-3 in the second leg).
Lack of competition experience Mauritius is difficult to improve
Mauritius qualified for the Africa Cup of Nations once in 1974 and has never been in an Africa Cup of Nations since then. Mauritius won two football events at the Indian Ocean Multi-Games in 1985 and 2003, and reached the final at the last Indian Ocean Multi-Games in 2019, but lost 1-0 to Reunion on penalties.
Although a small African country, Mauritius has a poverty rate of only 0.2% (according to the international poverty line), and according to the World Bank, the country has been classified as a high-income economy, making it one of the richest countries in Africa (Mauritius's GDP per capita reached US$11,003.97 in 2018, which is 6 times the African average). Due to the epidemic, the per capita GDP of Mauritius fell to 9671.43 US dollars in 2020, while the gdp of mainland habitat only surpassed Mauritius in 2020), football is also one of the most popular sports in the country, under the impact of the epidemic, Mauritian football should have been able to use financial resources to shorten the gap with other African teams, but this is not the case.
As a volcanic island nation, Mauritius is surrounded by coral reefs, and although it has also produced some players who can travel to other countries to play professional leagues, it is very difficult to form a strong team for a large tournament such as the African Cup of Nations qualifiers, and it is difficult for Mauritius to gather elite players from overseas.
'If I go far away to play, I'll be very tired when I come back and I don't think my club would want me to go.' Mauritian striker and captain Linse Ross, who plays for Poland's giants Legia Warsaw, said he was born in Rennes, played for Lyon, was selected for the French U18 and U21 national teams, and in 2017 he was persuaded to play for his father's birthplace of Mauritius, but in the past four years he has only made five appearances for Mauritius.
Mauritius has very few official big matches to play due to poor performance in the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers, to which Lindse Ross said: "If we lose the game, we will have two years to play without games to play, which is why I can't play too many games, we have to win the qualifiers to get into the qualifiers, it's not fair." In Europe, you can directly enter the group stage. I think African football needs to have as many qualifiers to play as Europe.
I'm in a WhatsApp group with Kevin Bru and some other overseas Mauritian players and all the overseas players want to play, it's our dream. We want to showcase Mauritian football in Africa.
It was a great honour for us, but for Mauritius they called off the league and brought Mauritian football to a standstill, which was a disaster and if Mauritian players could not play, we would never qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations. ”
The epidemic has hit the league suspension Mauritian football has entered a cold winter
That's the problem with Mauritian football, the Mauritius National League has been suspended since March 2020, when Mauritian side Grande Riviera was at the top of the table, but unfortunately they didn't win the title in the end. During this period, the Mauritian league briefly resumed, but was immediately suspended. So far, there are still no club football competitions in Mauritius, so Mauritius can only rely on a group of local players who have not participated in any competitions in two years to play qualifying matches, and it is reasonable to lose in the end.
Without club and official competitions, Mauritius can only play friendly matches during the event window. New manager Tony François previously led the team to Nepal to play two friendly matches, but both lost 0-1, and then the team trained in Portugal and played a friendly match with the Seychelles, which was finally a 0-0 draw, 3 games of offensive end of the grain, lack of club games, Mauritian football into the cold winter is difficult to recover.
It wasn't until a week before the Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers that manager François officially met with overseas players, and like Mauritian players, these players who played overseas rarely had the opportunity to play, except for the aforementioned captain Lindse Ross, and the same older player, Blu, who currently plays for France's Versailles team, but has only 19 appearances in a full decade, and his last appearance at the club is three years ago.
Commenting on the difficulty of playing at the club, Breu said: "When you are ready to play a game and find that you have not played a formal game for two years, it is a very crazy experience, and it is very scary not to play at the club. ”
Financial and human base Mauritian football remains on its own
It is true that the Mauritian league will not only be suspended due to the epidemic, but also many forceable factors may also make this humble league cut off. Unlike most countries, football in Mauritius has been developed on a community basis, such as the Tamil Sunrise Team, the Muslim Scouts and other teams, whose fan base is from the African Creole community.
These communities are numerous, and the differences within the communities are often resolved in the football stadium, and the Mauritian government once banned clubs from taking the name of the community, but divided the links between the community and the club. At one point in 1999, the battle for the title between the Boy Scout Army and the Fire Brigade led to a riot that spread to Port Louis, where a fire broke out in a local casino that killed seven people. The unrest aroused the attention of the Mauritian government, which banned the Mauritian league, so much so that almost all football clubs at that time were dissolved.
The incident devastated Mauritian football, after which the new team was gradually formed on the basis of the town, with no games to play, the interest in local football games faded, and fans had to watch the Premier League in front of the TV to alleviate the memory of football.
As more and more teams were established, mauritius's domestic leagues gradually recovered, and the government even funded the development of professional leagues, but the sudden outbreak of the epidemic dispelled everything, and the league was not only suspended, but the government had also stopped allocating funds. At present, according to the original regulations, there can be no more than 50 people gatherings, and the African Cup of Nations qualifiers in Sao Tome, Mauritius is an exception, but only a maximum of 250 people are allowed to watch.
Mauritian football also once had a lot of talented youth players, reaching the final of a major youth competition for the first time in the 2017 Africa U17 National Cup, only to lose to Zambia. The stadium was so packed in that final that the Mauritian Football Association director Marr, who was present at the time, said: "You can feel the enthusiasm of Mauritians for football. ”
Excellent financial resources and mass base, but suffering from the epidemic domestic league suspension, domestic players lack of game training, overseas players are difficult to stand, fans can only watch the European league chat for comfort, the development of football in a rich country has stagnated. When the Comoros, also an indian Ocean island nation, has also broken into the African Cup of Nations and played well, Mauritian football continues to stand still in place.
Through Mauritian football, we seem to be able to see some of the shadows of Chinese football.
(This article is compiled from World Football Magazine, back-ups/MIKU)