The game of soccer is about power, grace, speed, agility. The best and the most revered players are nimble and fast and crafty and entertaining. There is something magical about ballet-like performances staged by renowned star-studded teams on a soccer pitch. These teams of seasoned professionals create joy and at times, sheer bewilderment and awe.
The game of football, when played at the highest level somehow has a therapeutic effect on us. And perhaps, ultimately, this is what soccer is meant to achieve. To please the eye and to heal within.
There is a hitch, though. You have to win to get the final accolade, the ultimate recognition that really matters. Great teams made up of great players win games, don’t they? Usually, yes. Not always. The thing is that you can be consistently beautiful and still not win. You do not have to be beautiful to win. Better yet: you do not have to win beautiful. This is where our own Lions come in. I suggest to you that our national side has just made a strong and compelling case for winning ugly.
Our last and mildly triumphant outing away in Blida is the spitting image of ugliness on a football pitch. Let’s count. Ball possession, a reliable metric for dominance and mastery, was about 35%, which basically suggests that we did not exist that much. We almost survived, unscathed, the 10+ corner kicks conceded. We were credited with about 4 bona fide attempts on target at goal, including a ridiculously puny header by Mr. Tawamba. We scored an ugly goal thanks to a virtuous bad bounce and a heated scramble and, wouldn’t you expect it, the only near world-class striker on our side banged in a stunner. We won. Pity!
Léon Gwod, Sipandang
