An African World Cup indeed
Posted by Edward Karani , Saturday, June 19, 2010 3:46 AM
I don’t think I have enjoyed a world cup as I am enjoying the African world cup. It’s been amazing. So far I haven’t missed a match. During the 2006 world cup, as I was watching the matches, I thought they were great and well played out. As usual I was supporting all the African teams plus Portugal. Now I am only supporting the African teams only, and one after the other they are breaking my heart. Exams should scare me and that feeling of when the lecturer or teacher walks in with the exam and your stomach is filled with water, you are shaking like a leaf on a cold winter morning, like the winter the players in South Africa find themselves in, and your heart misses a bit. As the lecturer places that paper back side first, your heart beats faster, you want to turn it and see what the teacher has set for that paper. That’s how I have been feeling whenever I watch a match where an African team is playing, More so, a black team. I want them to win so badly. I can hardly wait for the game to start. And when it starts, I am shaking like a leaf, especially when the opposing team makes an attack towards our goal. If they score like Nigeria did I want the time to move so first so that we can celebrate together, when they start to loose as Nigeria and South Africa did, it makes my heart begin to race. I am still optimistic that they can still do it. When they play as badly as Cameroon do, it breaks my heart.
I want Africa to win the World cup badly, and by Africa I mean sub-Saharan Africa. I want South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameron, and Algeria to win and to get somehow ahead in this world cup. But one by one they are breaking my heart.
I wonder do the Africa players in South Africa know how much I am sacrificing to watch these games. I don’t think I have ever given much attention to anything in my life as I am doing to the South African world cup. That should change. Yet I am a final year student, in Kenyan public University. Do they know that I have exams in two weeks times, my final exams in campus but my heart will not let me think about that? I have to watch the world cup. Usually the excitement grips me one hour prior to kick. Right now my heart skips a bit and I am anxious, because the next will determine whether South Africa makes it to the next round or nor. France and Mexico, may God hear the hearts of the Africa people who are hopeful and are not asking for much. A quarter finals appearance will do for me, for others a semi-final will do.
Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Nigeria should know that Africa is not asking that they win they world cup. We only want them to play their hearts out for Africa. We want to see them play the beautiful African game where the ball is made of several paper bags and strings, the grounds is the road next door, or the dusty road outside your house, at times barefooted with your whole heart in it.
Anyway in 2006 I enjoyed watching the world cup in Germany, but I kept on telling myself 2010 is coming. Africa’s time is coming and I am going to enjoy every minute of it. For four years, I have been waiting for this world cup that is why I watching every match I can, watching the sports news, so I can see the highlights of the matches I have already watched, and hating on Uruguay and Greece in the meantime.
Go Africa and long live the vuvuzela!
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