At last football creates the right headlines!
16 February 2012
Posted by: Douglas McPherson | Comments: 0
Those that know us know that all of us at Tenandahalf suffer from a serious addiction. No not drugs (though it would arguably have been cheaper and less time consuming), it’s football. With that in mind this admittedly isn’t anything to do with marketing or business development or professional services - but please indulge us; it’s just a nice story!
At the moment it seems as though you can’t turn on the news without hearing/reading about absurd wages, arguments with the manager, racism, infidelity, deviant sexual practices and even (laughably) public refusals to shake hands. But, while these cosseted self-obsessed multi-millionaires repeatedly drag our beautiful game through the mud you may have missed a good old fashioned fairy story unfurling at the African Cup of Nations.
You could be mistaken to think that fairy story began and need with the fact unfancied underdogs Zambia (whose only top flight player plies his trade in the Swiss league) beat the favourites Ivory Coast with their cast of Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal players.
But there was much more at stake.
In 1993 the ‘golden generation’ of Zambian players was wiped out (bar their then superstar former African Footballer of the Year Kalusha Bwalya who, because he was based in the Netherlands with PSV Eindhoven had travelled directly to Dakar) when their plane crashed at Libreville, eerily the venue for last Sunday’s final. While the press did write about their wish to “avenge” their dead colleagues, the unassuming and somewhat unspectacular team went about its business and reached the final with more luck than judgement. Or indeed skill or ability!
Before the final emotion threatened to take hold, especially the night before when the whole team went down to the water’s edge to the spot where the plane actually crashed and scattered flowers on the sea. But it didn’t and as the game wore on and most notably Ivory Coast’s Didier Drogba missed his 70th minute penalty, it seemed as if they might actually do it.
They saw through the second half and kept injury time goalless which in turn led to a penalty shoot- out. All of the players stood on the halfway line singing loudly with tears streaming down their faces. To maintain the feeling of unity the Zambian manager Herve Renard even carried the injured left back into the middle of the line to be with his colleagues.
The bit that really moved me was the close up of each player as they prepared for their penalty. Each of them kept belting out their song (and crying) yet they managed to hold it together, winning the trophy and quickly dedicating the win to another Zambian team that was never given their opportunity.
So Messrs Terry, Suarez and Tevez, stick that up your diamond encrusted Louis Vuitton bespoke sweatpants. At a time when footballers can only generate the worst type of publicity, there is at last an occasion we can enjoy the game for what it is and where we can say at last football really was the winner.
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