The Hindu : Sport : Africa's enthusiasm is infectious

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2006

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Africa's enthusiasm is infectious

One day, possession will translate into goals and potential into finals victory, writes Rohit Brijnath

Samuel Kuffour's guilt and pain was so powerful, it was as if he could not show his face to his team. So, kneeling, he hid it in the earth. For 80-odd minutes, the Ghanian's touch had been certain, yet now it had failed him, a back-pass of inadequate weight, an interception, a second Italian goal, a dream in tatters.

For Kuffour, it was a long way to come to make a mistake. Ghana has journeyed for years through disappointment to make its first World Cup. So has the Ivory Coast. And Angola. All lost their first round matches, but stood as entertaining reminders that even in tragedy, a team can be a triumph.

These teams are fast, feisty and sometimes intoxicating, and not for nothing are large beer jugs in the Ivory Coast known as `Drogbas' after their leading striker. He is anyway an unusual fellow, a poacher who plays for the Elephants.

The Ghanians, some of whom keep making the sign of the cross, evidently consider dawdling a mortal sin, for they are busier than Victoria Beckham in a shopping mall. Attacks came in muscular waves on Sunday, promising (but only that) to overwhelm an Italian defence that stands like a resolute dike.

Beautiful desperation

The Elephants, a clumsy nickname for a team that occasionally glides, and Angola's Antelopes, and Ghana's Black Stars, played with a desperation that was beautiful. Debutant teams may lack polish (though Ghana is slick in the midfield), but their enthusiasms are infectious.

Established teams like Italy and Argentina wear a professorial air of experience, stroking the ball around with calculated cool; young teams may lack their wisdom, but make up with a strange mix of ardour and anxiety. Always they want to prove they belong.

There is a pressure to being an apprentice team, there is a pressure also to representing nations barely acknowledged by the wider world, some known only for headlines that blare the word `conflict'.

Healing balm

Football for many African nations is a game but more, it is a healing balm within their land, yet also a passport to leave that land. Football is also their finest export, and perhaps the only memory we will carry of a nation whose ranking on the UN Human Development Index is 160 (Angola) or where life expectancy is only 46.24 years (Ivory Coast).

Perhaps it is why these teams seem driven by something more vital than a win or a second round place. When they play before the world, they are finally somebody.

But desperation also often clutters the mind, and the newcomer's notion that "this is our one chance" can create overeagerness. As Kolo Toure of the Ivory Coast was quoted as saying: "It's very difficult playing in a finals."

"You can't afford to make mistakes when you are confronted by (experienced sides),'' he said. "Argentina took their chances, and that's the difference between a side like them and (us). They made their experience count."

So did Italy; their mistakes were fewer, their eye for goal eventually more assured. The Ghanians manufactured chances only to squander them, and Michael Essien, who cost Chelsea over 30 million Euros and is his team's presumed saviour, could barely kick the ball between the posts. Perhaps desperation had cemented his ankle.

Pele suggested two decades ago that an African nation would win the World Cup by 2000. But from the time the Pharoahs (what else might Egypt be called) first showed up in 1934, no African team has ever reached the semifinals.

One day, possession will translate into goals and potential into finals victory. It may be a long wait, but hardly a boring one.

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