Big game in Africa, part 1

I have to confess that when I considered soccer at all I considered it not really worth considering. What, after all, could be the appeal of a game in which a tie of 0-0 could be a satisfactory conclusion?

Admittedly, I never played the game. Growing up in northeastern Montana in the 70s, soccer wasn’t even available. I remember hearing about it, but it seemed as exotic a sport as elephant polo. Surely no one in the U.S. played it.

Since then I’d only watched it when required to to support my stepdaughter or nephew. The game was no more a part of my life than Posh Spice is.

And then I went to Africa.

Africa is mental for soccer. The game is just barely edged out by God in their pantheon. Take the recent case in Morocco. In that North African country, the phrase "God, The Nation, The King" is a common expression, encapsulating the three priorities for all Moroccans. Few mess with the inviolability of that triumvirate.

Enter soccer fan Yassine Belassal. An 18-year-old student and rabid Barcelona fan, he was recently inspired to alter the above phrase, which had been written on the blackboard in his class, to read "God, the Nation, Barcelona.” It got him arrested.

You don’t trifle with King Mohamed VI. And when you do, for your soccer team, then that’s being mental for soccer.

In Ghana, as well as neighboring Togo, Cote d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso, you’re just as likely to see kids playing soccer as you are to find plantains in your next meal. In other words, it’s unavoidable.

On one level it’s not difficult to understand why. Unlike golf, say, or midget car racing, it’s a versatile sport that can be played virtually anywhere and often is, from open fields, to empty lots, to narrow alleys.

There is a similar lack of pretense when it comes to soccer accessories. If a ball is not at hand, or at foot as the case may be, one can be easily fashioned from rags, plastic bags, a slow chicken. Almost anything will work. As for extravagances like cleats or shin guards, who do you think you are, Steven Gerrard?

(Picture: A homemade soccer ball)