The World Cup winner, who has Ghanaian roots, lifted the trophy with France in 1998.
However, despite being a keen advocate of the game in the continent of his parents, he has remained unimpressed by the teams representing Africa.
After the second round of group matches, only Ghana had made good headway, but Desailly did not have much positive to say about them either.
"Overall I am a little disappointed with the African teams' performance but maybe my expectations were too high," he said.
"I'm especially disappointed with Cameroon. Nigeria have been a bit naive and Algeria made too many mistakes defensively even though they drew with England."
"I feel that Ghana didn't take the opportunities that were put in front of them."
The former Chelsea defender did reserve some limited praise for Ivory Coast and South Africa though.
"The Cote d'Ivoire - I have seen some great potential from them but they are in a very difficult group," he added.
"And finally South Africa, they have played with great passion but the level of the World Cup football has been too high for just passion to get them through."
