{"id":19550,"date":"2024-07-07T10:59:52","date_gmt":"2024-07-07T10:59:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/euro-2024-how-africa-has-had-a-big-influence-on-finals-in-germany\/"},"modified":"2024-07-07T10:59:54","modified_gmt":"2024-07-07T10:59:54","slug":"euro-2024-how-africa-has-had-a-big-influence-on-finals-in-germany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/euro-2024-how-africa-has-had-a-big-influence-on-finals-in-germany\/","title":{"rendered":"Euro 2024: How Africa has had a big influence on finals in Germany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">The immigration boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s has transformed the European Championship into a more culturally diverse event than ever before.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And as the ongoing 2024 edition reaches the quarter-finals, a number the teams remaining can trace part of their success to the performances of players with African heritage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Kevin Danso, more than most, exemplifies this.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 25-year-old defender was a lynchpin for Austria, the country of his birth, as they <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sport\/football\/live\/cpv35e6dypet\" class=\"ssrcss-k8mrr8-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">reached the last 16<\/a>, but grew up in England from the age of six under the wardship of Ghanaian parents, developing in the academies of Reading and MK Dons.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Despite standing at the intersection of three different nations, Danso, who plays for Ligue 1 side Lens, has always stayed connected to his roots.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In June 2022, he visited Ghana for the first time, a trip that left a profound impression on him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\u201cI\u2019ve been very lucky to call Austria home and Ghana my ancestral home,&#8221; Danso told BBC Sport Africa.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The culture, the food, the people and everything that is Ghanaian makes me who I am. I always follow the national football team and my support is always there for Ghana.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Taking in Ghanaian culture has also meant adopting its social peculiarities, specifically the enduring food rivalry with West African neighbours Nigeria.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In fellow Austria international David Alaba, who has Nigerian parentage, he has a willing sparring partner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">\u201cHe [Alaba] knows Ghana has the best jollof but he will always argue with me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/football\/articles\/c1e59ex2z81o\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The immigration boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s has transformed the European Championship into a more culturally diverse event than ever before. And as the ongoing 2024 edition reaches the quarter-finals, a number the teams remaining can trace part of their success to the performances of players with African heritage. Kevin Danso, more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19551,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19552,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19550\/revisions\/19552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kede.com.br\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}