One Week is exact, the football World Cup ended with the final in Johannesburg between Spain and the Netherlands. Spain won, Holland has lost all the comments were made, the controversies have become dormant and various celebrations are off to Spain, at least I presume.
Well I know it is not, journalistically speaking, right on the piece, but you want ... it's hot and are more lazy than usual! Now and only now I feel I can draw some brilliant personal conclusion on the game just ended. And I think I also have licenses to do this legitimately because I am in Africa I played football and really before Cannavaro and company, look at the photo above as evidence. Oh yes the foreground recognizable by its pale complexion and the plasticity of the movements are really me!
First, two final considerations. It 'was one of the ugliest matches of all the world. The game completely offset by excessive tactics implemented by the two European teams blocked by fear of losing. Pressing led to the whole field, and high defense offside tactic: he ended up playing in thirty, forty yards when the field is more than a hundred. The result of twenty players have crammed into so little space was a player receives the ball just did not even have time to stop the ball, which was immediately pressed by at least two opposing players are ready with clubs if you got rid of the ball quickly rather than .
guess if the game did not appeal to me that I am European and therefore accustomed to the exasperation of the typical tactic of the modern game, so unless you liked the viewer average African. It is because for the African football is above all a game, a fun game, even more than a sport. For them, the result is not everything. Derive maximum satisfaction from the spin effect, the relentless travel, the dribbling too much. It is no coincidence that, at least in part of Africa that I visited, the most watched football league through the satellite channels is the English certainly the most spectacular of those in Europe.
In this respect, I tell you a funny anecdote. We were in Tanzania, in a small village on the edge of the Serengeti, a few years ago. Walking along the main road we stopped to watch a bunch of kids playing with a ball made of plastic bags held together by rubber bands and ropes. From there we need to start playing with them was a snap. We went to take our beautiful leather ball and we were divided into two teams. Mixed teams: African children with more elderly and imbolsiti muzungu (which in Swahili means "white man"). I remember we played beside the main road on a soft layer of chaff from the threshing of perhaps a mile. I remember the happiness of those children in order to play with a real ball. I remember the pride of those children playing with adults, Europeans like their television idols. I remember they were good and that we had a great game. I remember that there was no way to enforce a set of roles these children: defenders, midfielders or strikers, while taking the ball trying to dribble past everyone and score. I remember in the head twenty minutes into the impromptu game of football the entire adult population of the village had left their jobs, with no hard feelings I guess, to watch and cheer at the game. I remember especially a child a little 'smaller than the others who liked to score and that always pulled in the door: in his own or the opponent did not matter: the important thing was to score.
I remember after the game, from petty Italian, we thought "good football but these Africans will never win a World Cup." In fact, the African teams will try to win a World Cup and to do this already by now rely on technicians in Europe who are trying to frame them in rigid schemes and tactics.
But it is worth it? It is worth so radically altering what it ultimately is and should be a game. It is worth to win a World Cup soccer played so bad and boring as the ones we've seen play in South Africa?
The other consideration with respect to football in Africa, concerns the means. I remember Last year, through the Johannesburg stadium I saw from outside. Very nice. But for Africa is an exception to the rich as well as South Africa is an exception in relation to other African states as well as the Jabulani and black (the ball of light and technological world of Africa) is the exception in respect of footballs made with plastic bags and rubber bands they play with the vast majority of African children.
In this respect, another story, do not worry: it's the last. Last summer in Mozambique, Ibo were at the main island of the archipelago of Quirimbas. In the square main village, African teenagers were playing soccer with the usual ball of luck. In this case there was also a door three poles in poor condition from the static hold. We are struck by passing a player's skill in being able to consistently pull the ball in the seventh door. Then an inaccurate shot the ball rolls toward us. And one of us proud of his Italian, last year we could still rightfully boast the title of world champions, kick the ball to send back to the players of the place.
kicks in fine style but the ball rolls for only a few meters. My friend takes his foot in his hands and repress with hold Stoicism fantozzi a scream of pain. It was certainly not a Jabulani, kicked the ball, but a heavy pile of bags and leaves. It remains an unsolved mystery of physics as it was to be placed under the crossbar from exile player Ibo.
Well I have dwelt too long and conclusions, the moral of these stories leave you.
You do not want to do everything I ....
PS Thank you Sara for giving me the beautiful pictures. I doubt that has taken her ...
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