Nobody, not even the most optimistic football fan in Africa, expects one of the four remaining African representatives to the World Cup – Cameroon, Senegal, South Africa or Tunisia – to reach the final, let alone win it.

But one can be certain that the winning team will contain a number of players with roots in Africa.

Of course, the reigning champions, France, are a mosaic of nationalities, with most of the team being made up of players from West Africa and the Caribbean. However, this is not the only European team with a high proportion of African players. England, Denmark, Germany, Poland and Belgium all have players of African descent in their teams.

South American countries like Brazil, Ecuador, Paraguay and Uruguay, as well as North America and the Caribbean, have had blacks in the national teams ever since the World Cup was first staged in 1930 in Uruguay, which it won as the host nation. Needless to say, many of its players were black. But black players have in the recent years "invaded" European countries that had in the past been hostile to the black race.

Portugal has the distinction of being the the first European nation to field a black player on its national side during the 1966 World Cup in England. Mozambican-born Eusebio made history, becoming the tournament's top scorer for his adopted country. Perhaps because of his African origin, Eusebio was never venerated in the same way as was Brazil's Pele, although many football historians say he was the finest soccer player the world has ever known.

England won the cup in 1966 and since then have never won it again. The closest they have come to doing so was the semi-final in Italy in 1990 against Germany. Germany were leading 3-1 with the match nearing the final whistle. In desperation, England brought on John Barnes, a black, as a substitute. From the left flank, Barnes twice lobbed the ball over the goalkeeper and cancelled the deficit to make it 3-3 tie at full time. Germany won the subsequent penalty shoot-out, but England learnt one lesson: whatever the tournament, they could only sideline blacks in the national team at their own peril.

Since then, blacks such as Ian Wright, Paul Ince, Les Ferdinand and now Emile Heskey and Sol Campbell have become a fixture in the English national team. The are no less than five blacks in the England team who are sure to be on the starting line-up. Almost the whole defence is manned by blacks – Rio Ferdinand, Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole. 

Then there are also the rookies Darius Vassel and Trevor Sinclair. Heskey is Michael Owen's striking partner at both Liverpool and the national team.

France follows with no fewer than six blacks in the line up. The French squad includes strikers Thierry Henry, youthful Djibril Cisse and Silvain Wiltord, defenders Marcel Desailly (the captain) Lilian Thuram, David Trezeguet and midfielder Patrick Viera.

Almost all of these great sons of Africa took part in the 1998 final in which France demolished defending champions Brazil 3-0 through two headers by midfield general Zinedine Zidane and Emmanuel Petit.

Even relatively conservative European nations like Germany and Poland cannot resist the black magic. Germany has its stable Ghanaian-born Gerald Asamoah, just as Poland needed the magic of the goal-scoring machine Nigerian-born Emmanuel Olisadebe to qualify for this year's tournament.

Although most of the black players in the European sides have come from outside Africa, especially the Caribbean, all have their origins on the continent, from where their forefathers were transported as slaves.

A few of these great blacks came from Africa only the other day. Viera, arguably the best defensive midfielder in the world at the moment, migrated from Senegal. Desailly and Asamoah are from Ghana; Makelele and the Mpenza brothers – Mbo and Emile – of Belgium, are from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Nearly all the great European soccer nations have at least one black player in the national team. The only exception is Italy, whose current World Cup squad is all white. But it is only a matter of time before the "black magic" finds a home in the Azzuri outfit.

A week to the kick-off, Edson Arantes do Nascimento, aka Pele, predicted that this year's cup would go to Italy, France, Italy or Argentina.

More importantly, he also said that the world would see the best of African football so far. After Senegal beat France 1-0 in the opening match and recovered from a goal to hold Denmark to a one-all draw last Thursday, it appeared this prediction was coming to pass. Cameroon too improved their chances of qualifying for the second round after squeezing a 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia on the same day. The big disappointment was Nigeria, who crashed out of the cup Friday

The world is watching France, Brazil, England and Portugal. But one thing that is for sure is that on the day of the final, there will be one or more black players on the field.