Ah, the listicle—the final refuge of the intellectually bankrupt journalist and the ultimate comfort food for the bored, scrolling masses. This week, BBC Sport Africa has gifted us a particularly pungent slice of sporting hagiography: a profile of the 'best' players who never managed to lift the Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) trophy. It is a ledger of exquisite futility, a collection of men who conquered the world, or at least the marketing departments of various sportswear giants, but found themselves utterly thwarted by the biennial chaos of their own continent’s premier tournament. As Mohamed Salah begins yet another ‘tilt’ at the trophy, we are invited to gaze upon the wreckage of previous legends and find it somehow poignant rather than merely pathetic.

Let us begin with the premise itself. The idea that we must celebrate those who failed is a uniquely modern neurosis. In any other profession, being the 'best' at something while failing to achieve the singular goal of your industry would be called 'incompetence.' If a surgeon is the most talented person to ever hold a scalpel but loses every patient on the table, we don’t write glowing profiles about his 'unfulfilled destiny.' We call the malpractice lawyers. But in the neon-lit, sweat-soaked vacuum of professional football, we treat a lack of silverware as a tragic character flaw, a cross to be borne by the millionaire athlete as he retreats to his Mediterranean villa to weep into a pile of tax-free currency.

Mohamed Salah is the current poster child for this narrative of beautiful failure. He is, we are told, the 'Egyptian King,' a moniker that suggests sovereignty over something more substantial than a lucrative shoe contract and a penchant for falling over in the penalty box at Anfield. Salah has been a runner-up twice. In the corporate world, a two-time runner-up is just a guy who’s really good at losing the big account. In the eyes of the BBC, however, he is a figure of Shakespearian proportions, perpetually reaching for a gold-plated cup that remains just out of his grasp, likely because he’s too busy making sure his hair looks perfect for the post-match interview.

Then there are the ghosts of Afcon past: George Weah, Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto'o—wait, Eto’o actually won it, but the list doesn't care about the winners, does it? No, the list craves the pathos of the losers. It craves the image of Drogba, a man who could supposedly stop a civil war with a well-timed speech but couldn’t secure a penalty shootout victory when it mattered most. It’s a fascinating insight into our collective obsession with individual greatness over collective competence. We worship the 'star' while ignoring the fact that football is a game played by eleven people, most of whom are usually wondering if their bonuses will be paid in a currency that won’t lose half its value by Tuesday.

The Africa Cup of Nations is, in itself, a magnificent middle finger to the sanitized, corporate perfection of the European leagues. It is a tournament of erratic scheduling, questionable pitch conditions, and the kind of humidity that turns world-class athletes into panting, confused tourists. This is why the 'greats' often fail. Used to the manicured lawns of the Premier League and the gentle pampering of sports scientists who monitor their every bowel movement, these icons arrive in Africa only to realize that their reputation doesn't mean a thing to a defender from a mid-table Mauritanian club who is willing to break a leg—either theirs or his—just for a chance to ruin a superstar’s afternoon.

The media loves this because it provides 'narrative.' It allows them to fill the void between matches with deep, meaningless analysis of 'legacy' and 'pressure.' They treat the Afcon trophy as if it were the One Ring, a cursed object that confers godhood upon the winner and eternal sorrow upon the loser. In reality, it’s a piece of metal handed out in a stadium that was probably finished twenty minutes before kickoff by a construction crew that hasn't been paid since 2022. The players don't want the trophy for its aesthetic value; they want it because it’s the only way to silence the screeching harpies of the sports press who will otherwise spend the next thirty years reminding them that they are 'incomplete.'

There is something profoundly depressing about the way we consume these stories. We are invited to pity men who have more wealth than the GDP of some of the nations they are representing, simply because they don't have a specific medal in their trophy room. It is the ultimate manifestation of our stupidity as a species. We ignore the systemic corruption of the sporting bodies, the crumbling infrastructure of the host nations, and the blatant exploitation of the fans, all so we can focus on whether a man who earns five hundred thousand pounds a week feels 'fulfilled.'

In the end, this list of 'greatest losers' is just a distraction from the fundamental truth: that professional sports is a cynical carousel of marketing and vanity. Whether Salah wins the trophy this time or remains a 'tragic' runner-up, the sponsors will still get their eyeballs, the BBC will still get its clicks, and the world will remain exactly as broken as it was before the first whistle blew. But please, do go on telling us how heartbreaking it is that a billionaire athlete has an empty spot on his mantelpiece. It really puts the world’s problems into perspective.