Reinvention of a football avatar

As the Cup of Cups nears, consciousness of the event drives the world to reinvent itself in a football avatar. Among the many who don the colours, as it were, are the myriad supplements that newspapers bring out. Don’t be surprised to see a ‘Home and Life’ pullout dedicated to Jabulani lamps and Bafana-Bafana curtains.
Of course, if you don’t know what Jabulani or Bafana-Bafana are, you are seriously offside. Nevertheless, some rags manage to score with their ‘football as the flavour of the season’ articles.
The Guardian’s weekend section (May 29), for example, got 32 players who scored in a World Cup final to recount the experience.
The picture-led display was a delight, not least because it brought back the greats of old, but because it was a reminder that football, like most sport, was primarily a chance for the poor to escape their misery and make a better life.
Be it the boys from the favelas of Brazil, or the working-class factory-towns of England, football gave these youth a physical and creative outlet for their boredom and aggression. And one that promised money and glory.
The fans were primarily poor too. But, the game on the pitch was their escape route from the droll and drudgery of the daily grind. Their football team was their saviour.
As globally the lot of nations improved, this aspect of football has, for the most part, been lost.
Only South America and Africa provide these fairytale stories now… and often, in a curious case of anthropological evolution, these happy endings take place in Europe, or even Japan.
Nevertheless, I digress.
My point is: there is a sepia-toned tinge of nostalgic indulgence when one thinks of the good ol’ days of football.
When the football was made of heavy leather and stitched so many times, that heading it could split your forehead open.
When the studs on your football boots, if you could afford them, were nailed to the sole and the nails often found their way into your foot.
When the pitch was a dirt strip and the goal two empty garbage bins.
When you scored and it didn’t matter if there were two or 200 watching.
Well, that’s all in the past for sure.
Nowadays, my son has a kit that Wayne Rooney would be proud of. There may be a surfeit of green lawns on which to play football here in Dubai. And as for the ball? Goalkeepers are not at all happy with the one that is going to be used in this world cup. To begin with, the ball has a name.
Spain’s stopper, Iker Cassilas, has led the charge against the ‘Jabulani’ (to celebrate, in isiZulu), saying it is too quick and hard to grasp.
Other complaints include the balls “special texture”, which makes it impossible to catch when it's wet and the ball’s movement making it hard to calculate its trajectory. Too much technology in this ball it would seem.
Which brings me back to the Guardian article. One of the goalscorers they spoke to was Alcides Ghiggia, the Uruguyan who scored against Brazil in the 1950 World Cup final. It was played in Brazil in front of what the magazine estimates to be the largest stadium audience for a football match ever recorded – 200,000 people. The stadium was called the Maracana. He scored the goal that hand2ed Brazil a 2-1 defeat.
Ghigga says in the article, “Only three people have ever silenced the Maracana. Frank Sinatra, Pope John Paul II and me.”
What makes that quote really special is not the fact that it is probably true, but, that it is preceeded by this one, “I started playing football kicking a stone.”

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.