Togo got their final qualifying campaign off to the brightest possible start when Manchester City’s temperamental striker Emmanuel Adebayor scored the only goal of the game at home to Cameroon.

But it was all downhill from there, for player and country. Adebayor failed to trouble the scorers again and Togo finished third in their group, five points off a second consecutive World Cup finals appearance.

The Togolese Football Federation has continued to be a hotbed of factionalism since that ultimately ill-starred appearance in Germany in 2006, and the re-appointment of General Seyi Mememe as federation head last week is the latest of many attempts to forge some unity.

Togo’s entire squad is based abroad, with Adebayor by some way the best-known. Half the squad play their club football in France, the home of recently-appointed coach Hubert Velud, who replaced Belgium’s Jean Thissen in, shall we say, Togolese circumstances.

Togo officials announced that Thissen was unwell and unable to take charge of the side for their home game with Morocco. This was news, apparently, to the perfectly-fit Thissen. But he was nevertheless replaced by Velud less than a month later.

Adebayor, whose qualifying campaign included a short retirement from international football in protest at the Federation’s inadequacies, is currently back in the fold and, if he is at his best, could be a star of the tournament.

However, as even Manchester City fans can now testify, that is a big if. And either way, Togo will be a team to watch, on and off the pitch at the African Nations Cup.