Zambia blames Africa’s World Cup outing on inferiority complex

Zambia’s sports minister Chsihimba Kambwili said the poor performance of African teams at the ongoing 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil was due to inferiority complex, the Post of Zambia reported on Tuesday.

“When African players go to Europe, they play better than European players themselves; but when they are playing as an African team against a European team, there is inferiority complex and Zambia should learn,” he was quoted as saying by the paper.

The Zambian minister said it was unfortunate that some African players become scared even before they play against certain teams.

“I remember when one of the African goalkeepers (at the ongoing World Cup was asked about the game) he just said, ‘that was Messi and there is nothing I can do’, meaning that he was so scared of Messi even before they played. African football can perform well, but I think the only problem is inferiority complex,” he added.

All five African representatives at the tournament have been dumped out. Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana were eliminated in the preliminary rounds while Algeria and Nigeria managed to reach the last 16.