AFCON2013 HAIRSTYLE (S)HITLIST

The AFCON/CAN has always been a showcase for African footballers for good reasons and bad. Scouts from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwean cattle-grazing pitch leagues troop to the tournament in their numbers to scoop new talent on the cheap.

So how does a footballer shine in the hope of bagging a purse-bursting big money move? Talent, I suppose. But in the CAN, sometimes just raw talent is not enough. Unless you’re one of the few who can spot a nit on a gnat’s nut from 50 yards, it’s sometimes impossible to tell one unfamiliar player from the next without seeing the numbers on their shirts.[To preclude charges of racism, I’m blacker than night]

The very kind African footballes love to make life easy for the scouts so they use their head oops I meant their hair. The players that turned up at this year’s AFCON2013 did not disappoint. Spotting spectacularly horrific hairstyles, some of the players made Mr T look like Archbishop Desmond Tutu. [And I say “horrific in a good way]. Even Taribo West couldn’t hold a torch to some of this year’s AFCON participants. Good old Didier Drogba’s horror perm/pig tail even didn’t look half as bad.

So if the outrageous haircut/styles are meant to catch the eye, then what about the poor players whose behinds seemed to be glued perpetually to the bench who had super-funky hairdos too? Were the haircuts just for when their faces showed on the big screen during the national anthems? Or for their wives and kids to identify them?

Anyway, the choices of a few hundreds of people regarding the most “interesting” hairstyles of AFCON2013 have been compiled by your humble part-time blogger (me, baby, me). Whether it is a fair reflection of the opinions of millions of Africans is a debate for another day. At the risk of sounding repetitive, this is a compilation of the “most interesting” hairstyle not the best or the worst (coughs) or even the craziest.

It was not easy getting the stats together as some players changed hairstyles (and even wigs) after each game which in turn made voters change initial votes occasionally. Remember Ghana’s Wakasso Mubarak (who attached some Tuareg horse hair at the back of his head against Cape Verde and took it off again against Burkina Faso, but not without shaving a gutter into his hair) and Mohammed Koffi(who had three peroxide dye streaks in his hair in the match against Togo but shaved it all off, leaving only a blonde beard against Ghana).

Without further ado, let’s count down our top ten

10: SALOMON KALOU (COTE D’IVOIRE) – I am not sure if the current electricity (see what I did there?) situation in South Africa is similar to the mess in Ghana but the Lille forward had normal hair when he arrived in South Africa. Yet, when he showed up for Cote D’Ivoire’s first game (against Togo) it seemed like the barber had only shaved half his head before the electricity got cut off. 

9: MOHAMMED KOFFI (BURKINA FASO) – The Burkinabe strongman just made history by being in a top ten hairstyle list for his beard.

8: JOHN PAINTSIL (GHANA) – The most experienced player in the Ghana camp gave “wicked haircut” a whole new meaning by ruthlessly shaving the sides of his hair into a killer Mohawk. The shave was so intense that in close-up shots, you could almost see razor bumps competing with each other for camera time.

7: TRESOR MPUTU (CONGO DR) – Tipped as the next Samuel Eto’o, Mputu scored a fantastic goal against Ghana, then left the tournament quietly with memories of a fantastic haircut.

6: YAO GERVINHO (COTE D'IVOIRE) – Always a-head of the pack, Mr Gervinho could only make 6^th position this time on the hair hitlist. He couldn’t make the top four that his manager Arsene Wenger would have loved.

5: AHMED MUSA -  The Nigerian busy bee made the list for some reason. Cote D’Ivoire’s Arouna Kone wears a similar style but probably was forgotten by the contributors. Price you pay for making a living off a bench.

4: WAKASO MUBARAK: The Ghanaian midfielder shone at AFCON2013. That aside, he spent half his time taking penalty kicks and half the time changing his hairstyles.

3: ARISTIDE BANCE The man most Ghanaian football fans will have severe nightmares about (literally and metaphorically). The attractive striker rescued Burkina in the semi-final against Ghana and capped an amazing performance with a pseudo-panenka in the penalty shoot-outs.

2: ISAAC VORSAH – One of the outstanding defenders of the AFCON 2013, he took a penalty kick to forget against Burkina Faso. Though, Rigobert Song tried the blonde locks years ago, Vorsah gave it a funkier look by keeping the locks short and well separated.(McDonald’s chips come to mind,anyone?)

1: KIDIABA  MUTEBA (CONGO) – The man who went viral with his “bum-shuffle” celebration has a heavy beard and a pony-tail and a half. (Remember genie from “Thief of Baghdad?)