A DIFFERENT WORLD CUP...

Call it soccer, call it mpira, be it footsie or the "beautiful game" as the great Pele said. This year's championship in South Africa has a totally different feel. Not just for the noisy trumpets, the Vuvuzela (which remind one of thousand bee swarms)... Someone was saying because of the beleaguered continent; this is God's blessing. History. This is Africa's turn.

Many African players are now international stars making the sport more interesting; from Nkwako Kanu to Didier Drogba and Samuel Eto'o. Of course past world cup finals have featured African players but they have been in European and Latin American cities; nothing strange, a formality, almost. I think we have to thank Nelson Mandela; his aura , what his whole struggle represents. Rainbow colours...
MALIBUYEEEEE....!

BRASIL VS SWEDEN at ARSENAL STADIUM

Presonally?
Going to football matches is much much more than just seeing the game. It is the atmosphere, the people, the tension and release of tension. In a big match like the one i went to at Arsenal (Wed 26th March)with thousands and thousands of people you go through various emotions: fear (large crowds), trepidation (as though matching through a thick forest), anticipation (whether you support one team or the other); fun ( the music, the singing, the colours); space and volume. Here you can scream your guts out just like everyone else. Idiosyncracy is allowed like nowhere else. Maybe huge concerts are the same. But in music concerts you have to shut up, sometimes and listen to the music. In football there is nothing to listen. You are watching and shouting. Others are doing the same.
Mass ooooOOOOH and aaaaaAAAH!!!

Brasil against Sweden had it's sentimental magic. Of course everywhere else were friendlies. Friendlies before it gets hostile in September when the heats for the 2010 World Cup (in South Africa) begin, world wide. Officially, the match was a revisit; i.e. 50 years since these two very opposite nations met in the 1958 finals, with Pele (then only 17) scoring two of the 5-2 win. In homage the Brasilian team wore the same blue shirts that were won by the Pele-Garrincha team half a century ago. This seemed strange perhaps for those too young to know historic details.
Like it or not football (or "soccer" to Americans) is the most popular sport on earth, because... it is just popular.

Boys kicking the ball; everywhere you go on earth : streets, parties, gutters, beaches, you name it. Nowadays of course you have girls kicking balls, too. Check out this blog's archive around October 2007!!!
I love the atmosphere.
There is the clever and less clever.
Alot of idiocy which you don't feel while watching matches on television. Like Frederick Lundberg (Sweden) touching the ball and a section of the crowd going nuts.
"He is the one with the red shoes!"
Brasil's Robinho starts running with the ball and is mowed down. In my mind he hasn't done anything, technically he just ran with the ball!....
He did not score, didn't even manage to set up a goal, didn't even pass the ball.
But the crowd around me is going into a frenzy. That is how illogical it can get. IT IS FUN. Here are kids, old people, women, pretty and more than pretty, large and small families, euphoric youths carrying flags, painted in flags, wearing flags...flagging...

Press and Players part of the glitter and glory.

You walk as if you are in sleep, in deep waters, a tunnell, religious hall...
Then the mind slurs and slithers back to 1988.
Maracana stadium watching Brasil and Argentina. Me and a German guy called Herbert are just mesmerised by Diego Maradona. But we dare not say it loudly...no way.
We will get killed, for sure. He is the best player on the pitch, the artist, the dribbler ( recently only Zinedine Zidane has reached that zenith in my opinion); yet we dare not scream. That is how illogical it gets.
Mantra of this piece.
And what about the "Mexican Wave"?
This is the dance that joins us all here tonight.
ITS COMING....ITS COMING...you hear the kids saying. One ten year old girl is hardly interested in the match at all. She loves the wave, the Wave, here it is...foot stamping, foot stomping, shake your feet, shake them, HERE IT IS...up you get, WOOOW...and gone.


The chaps on horses are another interesting sight here; policing forests of flesh. I had to pose with them.

Yes, there is more than the One Nil Win which Brasil clinched that magical night at Arsenal. And it wasn't even in the mainstream papers the next day. Now you know why blogs are significant don't you? It is about such wonderful experiences.
Life.

Indifference to Ongoing Women World Cup In Beijing…

Another appropriate word is nonchalant.
As though it is not happening.
I always overhear women saying “I hate football”, “It is a men’s game!” or “I can’t stand those bands of blokes singing ugly songs, drinking beer, shouting and fighting.”
Fair enough. Football (soccer, in the USA), can be rough and recently some dreadful skirmishes were recorded at London’s King’s Cross station where 150 violent fans from the Arsenal –Tottenham match (the previous weekend) left a 38 year old man hospitalised. Daniel King, sports columnist with Mail on Sunday wrote “sorry to mention it but violence is back” in football. Such stories of course will continue to put women who dislike Pele’s beautiful game, off it.
This is, nevertheless, for me, the exception rather than the rule.

I have been to many football matches in various parts of the world (including Latin America and Europe) where soccer attendance consisted of many happy chanting families and children. It can be a special outing where you can really express yourself verbally. It is also a national cultural event whereby identity is the motive.
On Wednesday (tomorrow) the ongoing women’s world cup in Beijing China enters it’s semi-finals. I have been watching some of the matches and they have been excellent, magical. The standard of playing has been amazing, especially if you observe top class players from Norway, Germany, USA, Brazil and England. The model of playing contrary to those who think this is girlie football ( and I was one of them too) is as good as any man’s game. You cannot deny that Brazil’s mesmerising players Marta and Formiga and England’s Kelly Smith and captain Faye White are great entertainers and fantastic dribblers. The only thing that I found appalling was goalkeeping. So many goals conceded proved it to be the weakest link. Think of the Eleven goals netted against the Argentinean side by Germany during the early matches. Or Ghana being trounced by Australia, New Zealand by Brazil. Many goals, some of them pathetic at the keeper’s kitchen.
But that can be rectified as years go on. Otherwise, I thought the level of the game ( and I was watching one match with a lady who likes football, who agreed too) is really blossoming and the technique of goal control, team work, short and long passes, finishing touches, the goals; absolutely thrilling. Superb.
But what beats me, and this is the intention of this blog entry, is this. Why aren’t women bothered by the World Cup contest? Many times I have been puzzled by the lukewarm response, the surprise when I mentioned it.
“Did you see Marta last night?”
Who is Marta?
They don’t know Brazil’s top goal scorer (female FIFA's world best player)who has been dubbed Pele In A Skirt, or England’s Kelly Smith, the female Zinedine Zidane.
“You heard how Germany trounced Argentina eleven goals?”
What, where, which, when?
“You don’t know there is a Women’s World Cup going on in China?”
Shrug. Sigh. Pout. I don’t like football.
And then there is the media. Female columnists are not even mentioning the games. They are not commenting on the wonderful expertise and skills and beauty of their fellow female sports-ladies; they are not reacting. And the mainstream media itself is merely giving very little tiny brief reports of the matches. I am shocked by the lack of pictures, the absence of headlines. BBC television shows highlights of some of these matches in the dead of the night, usually midnight. Which is understandable because of the time zone difference ….(It was the same with the African Winners Cup in 2006)…However, if someone likes something they can video tape and watch it the next day.
Beats me.
And Then.
Why call football (soccer) a man’s game? Why football in particular? Why are all other sports (not excluding violent boxing), athletics, tennis and so on equally shared? What is the problem here? Yes. Many governments and countries have not put much in female soccer but that shouldn’t be the excuse if there are female football geniuses and stars and the games are entertaining and as good as any other championship ones. Kelly Smith herself said in an interview that when she was younger she used to be discouraged from playing by both females and males. Perhaps that is part of the answer.
And.
When we hear equal rights and emancipation what does it mean exactly?

Senegal Draw Ghana in London Friendly

Millwall Stadium, Tuesday 21 st August, 2007...
The African soccer friendly at the New Den, Millwall Stadium was an eye opener.

I have seen Ghana playing ( vs Nigeria last February where the Kwame Nkrumah grand-kids won 4-1). But Senegal was a different story. More than two thirds of the supporters were on Ghana's side so, green-red-yellow colours seemed to say "Black Stars rules." No wonder the first goal a minute before halftime was from the Black Stars, hosts of next year's Africa Cup. Everything was in Ghana's favour, the chants, the Kpanlogo drums, the fans, the aforesaid colours. A zealous supporter near me kept waving a huge flag, to the annoyance of a ten year old girl who complained but had to get used to football over-zealousness.

Stadiums are one of the few places where you can shout as loud as you can and express yourself.

"Our flags are almost similar. The only difference is the star in the middle for Ghana's," quipped another singing supporter.

By halftime it was drizzling...

No wonder players are paid large sums of money. We sat watching a wet El Hadji Diouf captaining his minority side (South London is second home to Ghanians and we all know the Senegalese are more at home in France); the Bolton Wanderers star's efforts were rewarded with a goal. It was around 72 minutes.

By that time Senegal was proving the tougher team not just by brilliant football, passing and tactical playing, by fouling, too. Michael Essien (Chelsea's top mifielder) was kicked in so many instances, he had to wobble out four minutes later. He was in my opinion, the man of the match, an intelligent player who like Diouf was both star and captain.

This was a beautiful and entertaining game and the Gods were on the side of it's theme which was friendship. Sometimes the goodnatured Ghanian fans cheered lovely playing of the Senegalese. No wonder it ended in a terse but deserved, 1-1 draw.

Walking home I reflected on the stakes. Senegal leading Group 7 of the Africa heats, followed by Tanzania, which they drew (1-1) last June and beat the East African Taifa Stars, 4-0, in March.

Taifa Stars are upcoming what with the positive guidance of Brazilian coach Marcio Maximo...but watching the Lions of Teranga giving Ghana a hard time ( a Ghana that saw the World Cup a year ago) made me think : Taifa Stars, look- out!

I meditated on the high fee of 28 pounds, plus two more pounds service charge, by Ticketmaster, the company that sells tickets. I dwelt on the fact that one could not buy these entrance papers in London's African shops, like during the Nigeria match in February. It is always about money...

I sipped beers with two German agents; they said they were from Hamburg, looking for new boys. African players are at the moment part of "a fair catch", both for rich clubs and their own destinies. Gone are the days when African football was something you equated with nonchalant animals at tourist game parks ...something in the bush... This is the era of millionaire Drogbas and Samuel Eto'os... globalisation global globalisation.
Was thirty pounds a head worth it?

It wasn't a bad night counting that we matched through the riveting, spooky, dark industrial Millwall streets thinking, this area has a history of racism and such stuff. The sight of police and security everywhere was assuring. People of all ages with families were here : old, young, male, female...

Of course the colurful spectacle wasn't shown on mainstream television. Not many people let alone Africans in London knew about it.

But for those present, one word, shone. Pleasure. Entertainment.

Fun and sports maketh the day...

African Soccer Magazine journalist, Ebenezer, who was at the match publicising the new paper which focuses solely on African soccer. Check out

http://www.africansoccer.co.uk/

With Senegalese fans. This was a few minutes before the friendly game. Culture and sports always brings people together.

Ghanian fans chant "Essien!" "Essien!" for TV pundits prior to the competition.

Publicist and photo-journalist, CNN (Charles Nimmo N-Mensah) of http://www.ghanaweb.com/. Was there too. A man proud and comfortable with his job.