From Africa, always something new.

So goes Pliny’s famous quote – in Latin ex Africa semper aliquid novi, though he admitted he got it from the Greeks – which never looked better than during the World Cup qualifying games of 2005.

Without warning, four of the countries thought of as African powerhouses – Cameroon, Senegal, Nigeria, and Morocco – suffered a collective failure. Not one of them qualified for Germany 2006. In place of the mighty fallen came a quartet of first-time qualifiers: Angola, Togo, Ghana, and Ivory Coast.They were joined by Tunisia, the only survivor from the old guard.

The experts (I must admit complicity and say “we” experts) descried a passing of the established order and frantically began to bone up on the unlikely upstarts – only to be confronted with evidence that things seem to be heading back to the way they used to be.

From the African Nations Cup – the continental championship currently being staged in Egypt – comes news that Angola and Togo have already been eliminated. Ghana must beat Zimbabwe today to avoid elimination. And Ivory Coast has ensured its presence in the second round despite a 3-1 loss to host-nation Egypt. So far, the only country to claim a maximum nine points from its three games has been the traditional power, Cameroon.

A mere six months or so after sweeping the board in the World Cup qualifiers, the arrivistes are struggling. Inevitably, this leads to the impression that the qualifying results were something of a fluke, meaning that this year’s World Cup will not be seeing the best of African soccer.

From that thought springs irritation at the Africans: Why do they have to organize their Nations Cup in the same year as the World Cup?

Why not stage the ANC a few months earlier and have it double as the World Cup qualifier? The obvious answer: money. Separate tournaments bring in more money; the same reasoning also dictates that the ANC should be held every two years (the much richer Europeans can afford to stage their own nations cup only once every four years, thus avoiding any clash with the world cup years).

So, logically, it is from Europe that the loudest groans of annoyance and frustration are heard. European clubs are now massive employers of African talent. Of the 368 players involved in the ANC (a roster of 23 for each of the 16 nations), 204 are with European clubs. Those clubs regard the timing of the ANC, which comes at a crucial part of their season, with considerable distaste.

FIFA regulations oblige the clubs to release, for as long as a month, any players called for ANC duty. Thus, Chelsea is having to do without Geremi (Cameroon) and Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast), both of whom are regular starters. Barcelona has lost top scorer Samuel Eto’o (Cameroon), and Arsenal is lacking defender Kolo Toure (Ivory Coast).

Reluctantly, the clubs release their players, though occasionally they will hold back one who is injured. Chelsea has done this with its Ghanaian midfielder Michael Essien. Such moves always arouse suspicion, and Essien himself has come under fire. “There are some in Ghana who are saying I have been faking this injury so I can stay at Chelsea and not go to the African Nations Cup,” said Essien, “They say I am not really injured, that I have put my club before my country, but it is just not true.”

The dispute is merely one of several off-field happenings that are spicing the ANC, which is also proving a particularly worrisome tournament for the losing coaches.

South Africa, which will stage the 2010 World Cup, has a Romanian coach, Theodore Dumitru, who must surely know that he is in trouble. He took over after one disaster – the country’s failure to qualify for Germany 2006 – and has now seen the team, nicknamed the Bafana Bafana, eliminated from the ANC. On Sunday the country’s president, Thabo Mbeki, had ominous words for the team: “I say they did not try to ensure that our country becomes a winning nation. We cannot be a losing nation in a way that Bafana Bafana lost in Egypt.”

African Governments do tend to get involved in their nations’ soccer. The early elimination of Zambia, for example, saw deputy sports minister Richard Kazala call for the resignation of coach Kalusha Bwalya.

Stephen Keshi,the amiable Nigerian who coaches Togo, may be in the process of losing his job. His success on qualifying Togo for the World Cup has now been undone by total failure at the ANC, where Togo lost all three of its games. On top of that, Keshi got into a heavily publicized spat with star striker Emmanuel Adebayor,who was guilty of turning up late for training. Keshi dropped him, then recalled him – but Adebayor refused to take the field. Keshi called him “a cry baby,” adding, “if he is really a star, he should behave like one.”

For the Democratic Republic of the Congo,it may not be just one player but the whole team that refuses to take the field on Friday. Scheduled to play a quarterfinal match against Egypt, the Congolese are threatening to boycott the game unless promised bonuses of $25,000 per player are paid beforehand. Coach Claude LeRoy says he has received an assurance from DR Congo president Joseph Kabila that the bonuses are on the way.

On the field, there has been plenty of passion, a little too much as far as Ghana’s Kingston Laryea and Senegal’s Habib Beye are concerned. A quickly-broken-up bout of fisticuffs has led to both players getting fourgame bans – which puts them out of the tournament.

For the rest, the games have featured the traditionally skillful and free flowing African game. Well, maybe not quite, because the European influence is pervasive. Eight of the 16 coaches are European, and 55% of the players are with European clubs. European defensive tactics and caution are changing the nature of the African game. The first 20 games of the ANC have produced 44 goals, a mere 2.2 per game.

Back in 2002, in an article titled “Where have all the goals gone?”, FIFA president Sepp Blatter wrote: “I hope especially that those Europeans in charge of teams from other continents never impose European ways so totally that the natural juice is squeezed out of the local variety.”

A forlorn hope, I fear. In all likelihood, the five African teams at Germany 2006 (three of which have European coaches) will settle for a cautious approach, meaning we’ll have little chance of seeing the magnificent freewheeling soccer that made Cameroon such a joy to watch in 1982 and 1990.