By Simone Poliandri
In the Lebanese Premier League, Al Nejmeh forward Hassan Al Mohammad controls the ball right outside of his team’s box, sprints across the field, and scores the winning goal with a superb long shot from midfield in the 89th minute. Al Ahed goalkeeper can only watch the football flying into the net, settling the score at 3-2, and sending the home fans into a craze. February 15, 2012.
The room was tense. Zambia and Ivory Coast had played their hearts out in a goalless draw over 120+ minutes and now it came down to penalties. With me, watching a good stream on the big screen at work (on a Sunday), were three Zambians, a Kenyan, two American soccer aficionados, and my family.
Drogba had missed a penalty in regulation so the momentum seemed ever so slightly to favor the underdog Zambians. Chipolopolo prayed and prayed on the pitch, one of our Zambian friends commented wryly: “I didn’t know Zambians were so religious!”
As Zambia’s French coach Herve Renard would tell the media after the game, “I know we’re not the best, but we have a strength and force that animated our team.”
With the score tied at 7-7 in the shootout, Arsenal’s Gervinho shot wide and Sunzu stepped up for Zambia’s second chance to win.
Gooooooool!!!! The Zambians roared.
“I can’t believe it happened in my lifetime,” one of the Chipolopolo supporters exclaimed. We saluted the champions of Africa. Cell phones came out in an attempt to reach Lusaka.
The day after, not many people are at work, or so it seems . . . the Lusaka Times reports that “a thunderous welcome awaits the newly crowned Champions of African football” at Kaunda airport today.
With eight of the Zambian players based in South Africa, a national anthem based on Nkosi Sikelel’, and venerable liberation struggle ties, some of us delight in the fiction that a little piece of South Africa won as well.
That Chipolopolo became champions of Africa in Libreville, where the 1993 air crash killed the greatest Zambian team ever, made this triumph all the more special.
Viva Chipolopolo Viva!
By Simone Poliandri
Alexandre Oliveira of Londrina displays his superb skills scoring the go-ahead goal against Iraty with a state-of-the-art bicycle kick in the Brazilian Campeonato Paranaense, the football league of the state of Paraná. Iraty then tied the game at 1, which was the final score of the game.
Egypt’s worst-ever soccer disaster: at least 73 people died at a match in Port Said on Wednesday. “This tragedy is not simply a story of a match gone horribly awry,” writes James Dorsey at The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer blog. “It will have important and wide-ranging political ramifications.” (Full post here.) The causes for the tragedy are unclear.
According to the New York Times, “Politicians, fans and Egyptian soccer officials all faulted the police as failing to conduct the standard gate searches to prevent fans from bringing knives, clubs or other weapons into the match.” Did the ultras — hard-core supporters — of home side El Masry and Cairo heavyweights Al Ahly walk into a trap?
Tensions between the ultras were high in the build up to the match. Taunts and scuffles in the terraces halted the game early on. El Masry won 3-1, but as the final whistle blew fans invaded the pitch and chased the Al Ahly players. Egyptian television footage (see above) shows undermanned law enforcement standing passively during the chaos.
“People here are dying, and no one is doing a thing. It’s like a war,” said Al Ahly star midfielder Mohamed Aboutrika; “Is life this cheap?” He then promptly announced his retirement from the professional game.
“The ultras whether they walked into a trap or initiated the Port Said violence have no doubt again dug themselves into a hole,” Dorsey observes (full post here). “This time round it will be a lot tougher to dig themselves out. They have played into the hands of the military and the police in dealing a lethal blow [to] contentious street politics as opposed to electoral politics and the horse trading associated with it.”
We at Footballiscominghome extend our condolences to the families of the victims.
***
Additional coverage of the Port Said disaster and its aftermath here.
This just in from Alex Galarza: NPR’s Andy Carvin is curating tweets live from Cairo @acarvin. Osama Diab at The Guardian also has a worthwhile story.
Read David Goldblatt’s “Egypt’s Political Football” here.
Further Reading: Paul Darby, Martin Johnes, Gavin Mellor, eds., Soccer and Disaster: International Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2005).
By Simone Poliandri
23-year-old forward Erlan Gastón Mealla of the team Nacional de Potosí scores the first of his two goals against Bolivian capital La Paz side The Strongest with a flying back heel volley (or scorpion kick) from outside the box. Nacional de Potosí won the game 2-0 in the first match day of the Bolivian Torneo the Clausura 2012 on Sunday, January 29.
By Simone Poliandri
Although scored a few months ago, these two jewels by new Brazilian phenom Neymar and old Brazilian magician Ronaldinho scored in the same game deserve a spot in the series. São Paulo team Santos hosted Rio de Janeiro side Flamengo for the twelfth round of the Brasilerão on July 27, 2011 in one of the greatest Brazilian games in recent years. Down 3-0 early in the first half, the red-and-black carioca team led by hat-trick scorer Ronaldinho ended up with an amazing 5-4 comeback victory.
With the African Nations Cup about to kick off this weekend in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, it’s time to put the spotlight on Yaya Touré, the Ivorian international and Man City midfielder. In this part of a longer interview produced by his new endorser — Puma, an expanding commercial force in African football — the best-paid player in the English Premier League reflects on growing up in Ivory Coast, learning the game in Bouake, and then moving to big-time football in Abidjan.
Thanks to Tom McCabe for telling me about this interview.