Oh, DR Congo! What a glorious tale of confusing football success.
A country so gifted and simultaneously so blase ? or as they might say in Kinshasa ?laissez-faire?.
A country that, in a small spell, will give away two goals in an AFCON quarterfinal only to bounce back with four in 25-minute blitz.
A country that is home to TP Mazembe, winners of Africa?s elite club football competition in 2009 and 2010 and semifinalists in the last two years.
The same country with a central government that only controls a small part of it, one ranked the world?s poorest but seated on mineral resources capable of making the richest.
This is very much the paradox of Congolese football. There are so easy to dismiss and yet so evidently gifted.
Against Yaya Toure and Ivory Coast in tomorrow?s AFCON semi-final few people will, therefore, give DR Congo a chance.
Ivory Coast, they believe, will be unstoppable following their 3-1 victory over top-seeded Algeria in the last round.
And don?t bother making a man-to-man comparison between Congo and Ivory Coast because the gap gets incredibly wider.
Moreover DR Congo have had a much softer run to the semis compared to the Ivorians, who had to get past Cameroon, Mali, Guinea and of course Algeria.
But write off DR Congo with caution. The Congolese are masters at beating the odds, at finding success in the midst of huge obstacles.
For all the choas associated with Congo, they have won the Nation?s Cup twice, been to the World Cup once, brought you the Rumble in the Jungle and, of course, Lingala music.
Ivory Coast can?t touch that.
By Charles Mutebi, The New Vision
