SOCCER SUPERSTAR STARSTRUCK SYNDROME

                

                    RUBBISH REASON WHY GHANA CAN BEAT EGYPT

Growing up in Tema, Ghana, we saw lots of footballers come and go. Mostly, good ones.

Oh, you didn’t know? Tema has produced generation after generation of world-class footballers for Ghana. Think Joe Addo, Simon Addo, Ishmael Addo, Daniel Addo, Sebastian Barnes, Shamo Quaye(I bet you didn’t know he was Tema-based, did you?), Paa Joe Kuma, Attakora Amaniampong, Abdul Razak Ismail, Joe Fameyeh, Matthew “Klinsmann” Amoah etc etc.

Even the bronze-winning Ghana U-20 side that played in the recent World Youth Tournament in Turkey (2013) had no less than SEVEN Tema-based “youngsters”. Fact.

Now, when we growing up, there was an already grown-up neighbourhood champion footballer who had a call-up into the senior national team. I am not going to confirm if his name is amongst the ones aforementioned.

This footballer was at least a decade older but he was after a girl in our circles. On paper, he was the same age as us but we all knew better. (If you do not understand the preceding statement, ask a Ghanaian football fan, what the definition of “football age” is.)

When footballer X was invited to play in the national team, we were all genuinely happy for him. Not as much for his career as for the outrageous spending that players treated their mates to after national team call ups. We had bagged our own gravy train! If his target-girl, our mate, could just get a quarter of his winning bonus, and we got a quarter of that quarter, we would be filthy rich!

Anyway, when footballer X came back from national duties - where he played zero minutes – he was elated, naturally. But the basis for his delight was not even the half-a-winning bonus that they paid him - the other half went back to the “big men”- he was just thrilled to have had the chance to take 6x4 inch 

Polaroid pictures with “foreign-based players”. Not only that, he had shots with popular members of his opponents too.

That was the first time I saw a so-called professional footballer star-struck at meeting fellow professional footballers.

What has that got to with anything?

Well, I was coming to that. You see, it’s not just local, Sakasaka-based midfield maestros who get star-truck at seeing big names.

A year after footballer X’s call-up, USA hosted the World Cup for the first time. Unfortunately, Ghana and footballer X, who turned out to be the thriftiest person ever, did not qualify but Nigeria did. In their match against Argentina, the Nigerian team went from a group of well-paid, Europe-based superstars to a bunch of hillbillies in a matter of minutes when Diego Maradona emerged from the tunnel. They stared catatonically. It was as if they had seen an alien in a football kit. I knew Nigeria will lose the game.

During the game itself, the Super Eagles paid more attention to Diego Maradona than the referee. True story. When the Eagles conceded a free-kick around their 18, they went back a further yard, when the great Diego Maradona asked them to. The ten yards was not enough for the legend, I suppose. With Nigerian eyes firmly fixed on the legend, Maradona picked out his team-mate Claudio Cannigia with a pass. The latter scored easily.

Fast forward, a decade and a few years to 2006, Ghana’s Black Stars had a World Cup second round date with Brazil. Ghanaian players stared hypnotically at the Selecao when they filed out onto the pitch in their iconic canary yellow shirts. I knew Ghana will lose the game. Ghana swallowed 3 unanswered goals. (Ronaldo breaking the all-time goalscoring record by beating the ageless Richard Kingson with a sumptuous step-over.)

More recently, members of an Olympique de Marseille team that visited Old Trafford for a Champions League game were so chuffed to be on the same pitch as the Manchester United superstars that they would have swapped shirts before the game kicked off, if they could. I knew they will lose that game.  They did. The manager of Marseilles said after the game, that he wished his players had just concentrated on the game.

To be continued…..