We are taking a collective break from blogging until Thursday, January 10th to give us a chance to breathe and catch up with our lives. Till then feel free to read our rich archive of posts from 2012, check in with our “Best …”-lists below and follow us on Facebook and Twitter where we may post occasionally in the interim. Happy New Year!
UPDATE: Apologies, but we’ll be back on Monday, January 14th.
While international media focuses on the legacy of Mohamed Salah during this Africa Cup of Nations, Egyptians are focused on a pair of identical twin brothers.
While most sports in South Africa are inseparable from the national political imagination, men’s football manages to stay relatively removed.
Does the development of African football necessitate a trade off in vibes at continental tournaments?
How the Congolese national team has become a rare source of unity, recognition, and solidarity for communities living through war.
What the presence of an unlikely trio of football icons at AFCON tells us about migration, African identity, and the histories that continue to shape the modern game
How Senegal rose to become one of the most fertile grounds in African football, and why this success still struggles to transform the local football economy.
Comment le Sénégal est-il devenu l’un des viviers les plus prolifiques du football africain, et pourquoi ce succès peine-t-il encore à transformer l’économie du football local.
What it sounds like on the ground in Morocco at the 2025 edition of Africa Cup of Nations.
In Morocco, football has become a site for the slow re-Africanization of the country’s national identity.
The Super Eagles don’t suffer from a shortage of talent, but represent a country unwilling to admit that greatness is not a birthright.
Distanced at club level, and scrutinized at home, there is no player with more to prove at this Africa Cup of Nations than Mohamed Salah.
Bafana Bafana’s resurgence has been forged where South African football always lives—between brilliance and the bizarre.
An African Cup of Nations at home for red hot Morocco is a chance to put past trauma aside and charge on to the world stage.
This year, instead of taking a publishing break, we will be covering the African Cup of Nations. To transition, we consider why football still matters in an era of enclosure, mediated presence, and thinning publics.
A dispatch from Benin City tells the unfinished story of the Museum of West African Art.
The scandal around Ezra Olubi has exposed the contradictions of Nigeria’s middle-class, online feminism.
In his latest exhibition, Khanya Zibaya charts the psychic and spatial terrain of a city where homelessness, decay, and human resilience sit uneasily together.
At the UN’s annual Western Sahara debate, everyone gets heard except the Sahrawis themselves.
The dispute over Benin City’s museum project shows that returning stolen art does not settle the question of ownership.
Somalis have answered Trump’s latest racist tirade not with outrage but with a tidal wave of trolling.