World Cup and Croatian Presidential Leadership as a Metaphor for Future Performance of African Nations

Africa lags other regions of the world in almost every sphere of development. In this blog, I write about what I think Africa can learn from the personality and leadership styles of Croatian president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović which the world witnessed during the recently-concluded World Cup. Croatia is an East European country of 4.1 million people that emerged as an independent nation on 25 June 1991 from the breakup of the former Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia. The tiny nation surprised the world by beating many strong teams, including Nigeria (2-0), Argentina (3-0), Iceland (2-1), Denmark (3-2), Russia (4-2) and England (2-1), before succumbing to France (4-2) in the Final. The team performed like they were on steroids. Before now, I wasn’t much of a football follower, but I have wondered about what gave the hitherto unknown team the boost to overcome many football Goliaths. A scrutiny of the 2018 World Cup has, doubtless, revealed President Grabar-Kitarović’s leadership qu