By Sola Fanawopo
I dedicate today’s Observatory to our guys on the touchline—the African coaches, breaking the glass ceiling with authority and results at AFCON 2025. Take your flowers. You are representing.
AFCON 2025 is doing something African football has struggled to achieve for decades: it is winning an argument without raising its voice.
As the tournament reaches the crucial phases in Morocco, attention naturally gravitates toward star players and dramatic scorelines. Yet the deeper story—the one that will outlive goals and trophies—is unfolding on the touchlines. For the first time in decades, African coaches are not merely present at the Africa Cup of Nations; they are the dominant force shaping it.
At the Africa Cup of Nations 2025, 13 of the 24 teams are led by African head coaches, while 11 are managed by foreign tacticians. That numerical shift alone marks a historic correction. But numbers only matter when they perform—and African coaches are not filling slots. They are setting the tone, the pace, and the psychology of the tournament.
AFCON Is an Ecosystem, Not a Theory Class
AFCON has always punished rigid thinking. It is not a laboratory for ideal football models; it is an ecosystem defined by climate, emotion, compressed recovery cycles, refereeing rhythms, and the weight of national expectation. This was precisely why African federations once believed only European coaches could “study” and master the tournament’s complexity.
AFCON 2025 has exposed the flaw in that logic.
African coaches do not analyse this ecosystem from the outside. They are shaped by it. Their teams are built to survive turbulence, absorb pressure, manage transitions, and win moments rather than possession statistics. AFCON does not ask who dominated the ball—it asks who dominated the moment.
Trust Has Changed Hands
One of the most revealing images of the tournament came during Nigeria’s group-stage match against Uganda. Victor Osimhen, Africa’s most recognisable striker, sprinted to the touchline during an injury stoppage to receive tactical instructions from his African coach.
It was a simple act—but a profound one.
This is the quiet psychological revolution of AFCON 2025. African players—many raised in Europe’s elite academies—no longer see African coaches as stopgap appointments. They see authority, clarity, and cultural understanding. Trust has become discipline. Discipline has become execution. The evidence is visible in compact defending, tactical obedience, and emotional control under pressure.
Institutional Memory as a Competitive Weapon
African coaches also arrive with something rarely acknowledged in global football analysis: institutional memory.
They understand federation politics, logistical uncertainty, late disruptions, and the emotional weight of national expectation. They plan not only for opponents, but for chaos. Foreign coaches often encounter these realities for the first time at AFCON. African coaches have already adapted to them.
That difference does not always show in possession charts—but it shows in knockout matches.
The Ivory Coast Moment That Changed Everything
The philosophical turning point did not begin in Morocco. It began at the Africa Cup of Nations 2023.
Ivory Coast started that tournament under a French coach, Jean-Louis Gasset. After two matches marked by tactical confusion and emotional disconnection, he was dismissed. The federation turned inward and appointed Emerse Faé.
What followed was not a miracle. It was an alignment.
Tactical clarity returned. Confidence surged. The dressing room reconnected with the nation. Ivory Coast went on to win the AFCON, collapsing a decades-old argument that African coaches needed foreign supervision to succeed.
AFCON 2025 is the harvest of that lesson.
A New African Coaching Identity
From Walid Regragui on home soil, to Éric Chelle with Nigeria, to Pape Thiaw, a clear archetype has emerged: African-rooted, tactically educated, emotionally intelligent, and globally competent.
CAF licensing reforms, years of assistantship under foreign managers, and accumulated tournament experience have finally converged. African coaches are no longer imitating Europe. They are interpreting Africa—and winning with it.
The Verdict—and the Next Test
African coaches are not dominating AFCON 2025 because Africa suddenly became generous to its own. They are dominating because the tournament now rewards what they have always mastered: context, adaptability, authority, and emotional intelligence.
AFCON 2025 is not an upset.
It is a recalibration.
The next question is unavoidable:
When will European clubs trust African coaches the same way AFCON now does?
If football truly believes the world is flat, then opportunity must finally follow performance.
African coaching is no longer catching up.
It is setting the terms.
Sola Fanawopo Chairman Osun Football Association writes from Morocco
The post AFCON 2025 and the quiet triumph of African coaches appeared first on Vanguard News.
