About AFCON2017

About AFCON2017, and yesterday’s (The Gambia vs. Cameroon) game in particular, haven’t you seen people pull through after falling to the bottom of society? Haven’t you seen nobodies become somebodies? Haven’t you seen onetime underdogs making big headlines? Didn’t Michael Jordan tell us how he missed more than 9000 basketball shots, lost almost 300 games, missed 26 game winning shots, now he is a god in a pair of Nike sneakers? So why do you doubt your Darling Scorpions? Who should decide the sufficiency of second chances given?

I’m not a very big soccer fan, but I have observed that I’m a better fan than most of these Scorpions fans. In fact in terms of believe, some of them are worse than atheists, and playing for them is becoming a drag. They can be fervent in believe days before the game, only to go back to their state of disbelieve just after the final whistle, forgetting that both teams were all in the hunt for the same thing. And in a game like soccer, there can be only one winner.

My take is, if you’re into athletics, whether as a fan, a player or coach, joy, relief, or fulfillment comes to those who do not give up hope. Team success is not all about talent, because we obviously have that. It requires chemistry, and most importantly patience. That’s why you’ll see players crying after winning their first championship. They hold on to the trophy like: “Wow, anything’s possible!”

So if you ask me, when it comes to rivalries, be it in combat, politics or sports, upsets are to be expected. But if we continue the fair-weather tendency, we’ll be sorry if things change, I mean when we’re hopefully crowned AFCON ‘Twenty-Twenty-Something’ champions, but at least I’ll be able to look at them without losing face and say: “I never gave up on y’all.”