Don’t Cry For Argentina!

K1 – Koo, if you were the Argentinian goalkeeper, would you return home with the team? After that gaffe in the match with Croatia?

K2 – Very good question. In Latin America, many football fans think that victory achieved at a football tournament is the best thing that can happen to a country and its people…

• Even though so many of them are practising Catholics?
• What has Christianity got to do with football?
• Ho, if you can ask that question, then you do not know football! Haven’t you heard that many football teams employ special “Ways and Means” brigades that organise mass fasting, selective celibacy and even invocation of spirits at cemeteries in the dead of night….
• I thought those practices occurred only at Abokyikurom?
• You don’t know nothing! Do Indians play football?
• No – I think they prefer cricket and hockey?
• You’re right there. Yet the most notorious book in terms of incantations and invocations in respect of success at football originated from India! It is called The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses!
• But I thought that was for prowess in chasing girls?
• You don’t know! The operative word is Girls o, cash o, football self! Na duka daaya!
• So what was St Francis for? De Lawrence?
• Each had his realm! Did you not read recently that a survey had found that the youth in Ghana are more religious than their elders?
• Actually, I did!
• There you are, then! If the parents believed in Saints and spirits invoked at night in cemeteries, what do you think they were teaching their children?
• But children are supposed to rebelagainst everything their parents teach them?
• On the surface yes. But sub-consciously, they absorb a lot, and then they use their youthful rebelliousness to transformthe beliefs to something else.
• Like that soldier who said he went to “fortify” himself at Lamakara in Togo before “charging” at fellow soldiers who wanted to kill him because he was on the wrong side during a n attempted coup?
• Where did you read that?
• Ho, you don’t watch YouTube?
• Hmmm, as for that YouTube, asemoo! Everyone is on it these days. You have a quarrel with your girlfriend, and it’s on You …
• Can we get back to Argentina, please?
• Well, if I remember rightly, in another Latin American country….
• I think it was in Bolivia?
• No, Colombia, actually! Well, in the World Cup in the USA in June 1994, a footballer called Andrés Escobar, a Colombian defender, was shot and killed when he returned home, after scoring an own goal in a match against the US, which his murderers thought had led to his Colombian team being eliminated from the tournament!
• My God! The Argentinian goalkeeper’s mistake was also almost an own goal!
• Yes! He’ll have to be guarded day and night from now on!
• Is Messi too in danger because he hasn’t managed to perform at the World Cup? I mean, look at his rival Ronaldo – a hat-trick in the opening match, plus another beauty of a goal!
• I swear, the Word Cup is a very dangerous tournament. It makes and unmakes players.
• Tell that to Asamoah Gyan!
• And in the same tournament that put Sulley Muntari on the word map of football! Maradona [Argentina] flourishes whilst Ronaldo [Brazil]flops… Johann Cruyff steals people’s hearts for the Dutch but can’t win the World Cup for them; meanwhile, Gerd Muller, not the most attractive footballer in the German game, rides home triumphant.
• Hey, what do you think of the “VAR” system whereby the referee can now consult other referees who watch video replays of controversial incidents, such as the award or denial of penalty kicks?
• The system is marvellous. One only wonders why it took so long to come into being.
• Some complain that it slows down the game?
• Balderdash! They said the same thing when video replays were introduced into the game of cricket. But can anyone today imagine an international cricket match without video umpires?
• So the world of sports is progressing?
• I would say so.
• If only we could have a World Cup every two years, or even three, instead of four!
• Ei, half the world’s marriages would end in divorce! Boys are very selfish when it comes to what pleases them, in this case, sports. If the men turned into boys parked their wives at home on a 3-yearly basis for a whole month…
• But those wives too! Why can’t they take a leaf out of the book of those women who always turn out at Word Cup matches and add drama to the games with – both their tears and cheers?
• Charlie, some of the women spectators are beautiful, eh?
• Another reason why the wives don’t always welcome the arrival of World Cup tournaments! The glamour exhibited by some of the women is unbelievable. And the TV cameramen – somehow – always seem to know exactly whereto find them!
• It’s an unexpected bonus for the World Cup, isn’t it?
• Shhhhh! Don’t let the women hear you say that!

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