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I was away for too long, cocooned in a country where football is
aberrantly called soccer. I got sucked in to one of the local games they refer
to as World Tournaments. How can Boston Celtics or LA Lakers be described as
World Champions when they never stepped out of the United States of America (not
even to Puerto Rico) to play another country? Same with the Indianapolis Colts
or the New Orleans Saint’s who were dubbed, world champions after winning the
Super Bowl in 2007 and 2009 respectively.

With balls freezing under my thermo-pants (trousers please)
every Super Bowl Sunday, I would go to Uncle Sunny Oboh’s house, a fellow
immigrant and lifelong supporter of the Washington Redskins and men who wear
women’s terelin, throw oblong cocoa pod-like leather with fat hands and call it
football. And none of us would have the balls to call a spade a spade, and
declare what Americans call football is known to the rest of the world as
handball. But that is America for you, they are the world and the rest of us
are the children.

Instead of screaming foul play, we’d fake excitement because how
else could we defrost the snow that had formed icicles in our homeland
memories?

When I first came back to Nigeria, I mistakenly called real
football soccer and a co-worker gave me an evil eye full of, “this is not
America, stupid”. I had forgotten that football was sacrosanct in Nigeria, like
religion, like opium; the people get so high on it and many get killed because
of a game of kicking a spherical piece of leather around for ninety minutes.
Before America’s myopia got me killed, I learned to correct my tongue,
repeating to myself many times, it’s not soccer, it’s football, sucker! And now
the World Cup fever has seized me like a New England winter, I wonder how I
could have forgotten football, something that had been woven so tightly into my
cultural upbringing?

To forget football is to forget my late father who would find
time despite his hectic schedule to watch me and friends play football with
oranges under my grandfather’s huge pear tree, and mediate when fights broke
out because football, whether by kids or adults, is a highly competitive game.
Or to forget my mother who was my doctor and physical therapist who nursed me
back to the next bruising game.

To forget football is to forget my senior brother, Osajele, who
bought me my first Felele out of his very first salary in life. I don’t
remember telling him thank you because I bolted out the door as soon as he
handed me the light weight ball and started screaming down the street like a
Holy Ghost possessed Pentecostal. I soon became the Pele and the king of boys
in my quarter and every one of them wanted to be my friend.

To forget football is to forget my PT teacher in primary school,
who gave me a long look on the field one day and said “Oyinbo you are too thin,
go and blacken the board for the next lesson”. Till today I still hate him more
than BODMAS. That Odemwingie guy could have been me, though my senior brother
would probably kill me first before allowing me to plait my hair. He would say,
“best footballer my foot – are you a woman? ” To forget football is to forget
my good friend, Okwy Okeke, who is so passionate about the game that he talks
about it like a first kiss, good wine or that very first love making that
lingers in one’s memory like a lick of honey in a bee-less country.

To forget football is to forget the one unifying universal
language, the hope that holds the world together as one. The single pot from
which we all drink without locking horns, where you do not hear expressions
like “geopolitical zone”, where Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Esan etc, has one heart
beating inside their Nigerian body.

To forget football is to forget our dictator, late Sani Abacha
and the days he had us on his killing noose. For a brief moment, the country
breathed peace during the 1994 World Cup until the Italians sent us packing, a
situation that was more painful than the hell Abacha was meting on Nigerians.
And hell broke loose again; such was the dictator’s negative vibe.

To forget football is to forget the recent history of our dear
beloved late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s ‘cabal-liers’, who found football
important enough to include in their scripted speech from the spirit world:
“I’d also like to use this opportunity to wish our national team the Super
Eagles success in our Nation’s Cup matches in Angola…blah blah”. And the Eagles
did not come home with the cup, because lies bring bad luck.

To forget football is to forget that we now have a president
whose name is Goodluck, a man who ascended the throne despite the evil machinations
of political Maradonas. And this is why I am wishing our national team, the
Super Eagles, good luck (not through BBC). May they bring us the ultimate cup,
the true mark of world champion, no matter the tricks and maneuvering of the
other teams’ cabalists.

The
World Cup is bringing deserved appreciation of South Africa as a nation
that transitioned from white minority domination to a vibrant pluralist
democracy. Yet its achievements stand largely alone on the continent.
Of the 17 African nations that are commemorating their 50th
anniversaries of independence this year – the Democratic Republic of
Congo and Somalia will both do so in the coming weeks – few have
anything to truly celebrate.

Five decades ago, African independence was worth
rejoicing over: These newly created states signaled an end to the
violent, humiliating Western domination of the continent, and they were
quickly recognised by the international community. Sovereignty gave
fledgling elites the shield to protect their weak states against
continued colonial subjugation and the policy instruments to promote
economic development.

Yet because these countries were recognised by the
international community before they even really existed, because the
gift of sovereignty was granted from outside rather than earned from
within, it came without the benefit of popular accountability, or even
a social contract between rulers and citizens.

Buttressed by the legality and impunity that
international sovereignty conferred upon their actions, too many of
Africa’s politicians and officials twisted the normal activities of a
state beyond recognition, transforming mundane tasks like policing,
lawmaking and taxation into weapons of extortion.

So, for the past five decades, most Africans have
suffered predation of colonial proportions by the very states that were
supposed to bring them freedom. And most of these nations, broke from
their own thievery, are now unable to provide their citizens with basic
services like security, roads, hospitals and schools. What can be done?

The first and most urgent task is that the donor
countries that keep these nations afloat should cease sheltering
African elites from accountability. To do so, the international
community must move swiftly to derecognize the worst-performing African
states, forcing their rulers – for the very first time in their
checkered histories – to search for support and legitimacy at home.

Radical as this idea may sound, it is not without
precedent. Undemocratic Taiwan was derecognised by most of the world in
the 1970s (as the corollary of recognizing Beijing). This loss of
recognition led the ruling Kuomintang party to adopt new policies in
search of domestic support. The regime liberalised the economy,
legalised opposition groups, abolished martial law, organised elections
and even issued an apology to the Taiwanese people for past misrule,
eventually turning the country into a fast-growing, vibrant democracy.

In Africa, similarly, the unrecognised, breakaway
state of Somaliland provides its citizens with relative peace and
democracy, offering a striking counterpoint to the violence and misery
of neighboring sovereign Somalia. It was in part the absence of
recognition that forced the leaders of the Somali National Movement in
the early ‘90s to strike a bargain with local clan elders and create
legitimate participatory institutions in Somaliland.

What does this mean in practice? Donor governments
would tell the rulers of places like Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea or
Sudan – all nightmares to much of their populations – that they no
longer recognise them as sovereign states. Instead, they would agree to
recognise only African states that provide their citizens with a
minimum of safety and basic rights.

The logistics of derecognition would no doubt be
complicated. Embassies would be withdrawn on both sides. These states
would be expelled from the United Nations and other international
organisations. All macroeconomic, budget-supporting and post-conflict
reconstruction aid programmes would be cancelled. (Nongovernmental
groups and local charities would continue to receive money.) If this
were to happen, relatively benevolent states like South Africa and a
handful of others would go on as before. But in the continent’s most
troubled countries, politicians would suddenly lose the legal
foundations of their authority. Some of these repressive leaders,
deprived of their sovereign tools of domination and the international
aid that underwrites their regimes, might soon find themselves
overthrown.

The international community would reward African
states that begin to provide their citizens with basic rights and
services, that curb violence and that once again commit resources to
development projects, with re-recognition. Aid would return. More
important, these states would finally have acquired some degree of
popular accountability and domestic legitimacy.

Like any experiment, de- and-re-recognition is
risky. Some fear it could promote conflict, that warlords would simply
seize certain mineral-rich areas and run violent, lawless quasi-states.
But Africa is already rife with violence, and warlordism is already a
widespread phenomenon. While unrecognised countries might still
mistreat their people, history shows that weak, isolated regimes have
rarely been able to survive without making significant concessions to
segments of their populations.

For many Africans, 50 years of sovereignty has
been an abject failure, reproducing the horrors of colonial-era
domination under the guise of freedom. International derecognition of
abusive states would be a first step toward real liberation.

Pierre Englebert, a professor of African politics
at Pomona College, is the author, most recently, of “Africa: Unity,
Sovereignty and Sorrow.”

© 2010 The New York Times

The
World Cup is here and all over the sporting world, the current subject
is football’s most prestigious event currently holding in South Africa.
For a change, Africa is the centre of something positive even in the
most sceptical of the world’s media.

In Nigeria, the
media is bombarded with all sorts of promotional gimmicks in tune with
the allure of football as a passionate sport, unifying tool, and big
business. Leading names in sports reporting are in South Africa to
serve as the ears, eyes and voices of their respective media.
Relationships are being strengthened as many men have added reason to
stay home and watch; pay television subscriptions are being hurriedly
renewed; new television sets purchased and old ones fixed; viewing
centres are filled with football fans, all wanting a piece of the
action.

The event commands
attention in Nigeria for at least three reasons. As our most popular
sport it provides opportunity for our national team to put forward a
positive side of our national life. Football has a unifying bond, which
makes us suspend our artificial differences for the duration. During
the Nigerian civil war, football’s unifying bond was underscored when
the combatants ceased hostility for two days to follow on television
and radio a visiting Brazilian football team parading Pele and a
Nigerian side. The 2010 World Cup is Africa’s first in its 80 years and
therefore defines the continent’s entry into the global sports
organisation. Every success recorded in South Africa is a plus for
Africa and challenge to the rest of us of what is possible with
planning, and organisation.

I’ve always been a
football buff until the Super Eagles threatened to make me a regular
visitor to the cardiologist. I was not just a cheerleader; I played it
in school and even teamed up with schoolmates to establish a football
team, DAMEO Rovers, a name coined from the first initials of the names
of the five prime movers—Dante, Austin, Michael, Edgal and Olanrewaju.
I was so passionate about the game I would forgo the meal that
immediately followed the match if my school team lost. I remember one
occasion in 1970 when my emotional dam broke and I wept. My school, the
Lagos Baptist Academy, had looked good to win the Principals’ Cup. We
had crushed schools like Ansar ud Deen Isolo, St. Finbarr’s, and Yaba
College of Technology Secondary School, and booked a place in the semi
final with Zumuratul Islamiyya Grammar School.

A diminutive
player, named Haruna Ilerika combined so effectively with Mustapha (MM)
and Toye Ajagun that they beat our hitherto conquering team, 3-0. Our
goalkeeper was to complain that each time the ball went in he actually
saw two balls hurtling towards him. Before we knew it word was out that
the opposition had overwhelmed our boys with juju. It was an
explanation I repeated at home, which of course drew much derisive
laughter. Ilerika’s feat in later years for club and country has of
course disproved that theory.

My involvement with
football over the years has changed. After following the exploits of
the Eagles—Green, Flying, Baby and Eaglet—for four decades, I have come
to the conclusion that it is in my enlightened self-interest not to
rely too much on the Super Eagles. For a year now my defence mechanism
is not to watch any of their matches live so that I can live to tell
the story. So last Saturday while everywhere was agog with excitement
on the impending Nigeria-Argentina match, I had made up my mind not to
watch it. A wedding in the family had provided a convenient excuse. Its
reception was billed for the same time as the match. Ten minutes into
the match I decided to follow the match on my phone. It was a mistake
as I learnt the Argies had put in a goal in the sixth minute. For the
rest of the reception I switched my attention between the reception and
the match on my phone unable to enjoy either.

On my way home I
monitored fans’ reactions on radio. Most callers were satisfied that
Nigeria was not disgraced. They saw hope in the team and some hunger
for glory. When I got home I watched the repeat broadcast of the game.
The analysis reinforced what I heard earlier. There was much hope that
the Eagles would raise their game in subsequent matches and progress in
the competition. While my heart prays along with them my head cautions
it won’t be easy, considering Nigeria’s shoddy preparation.

It is worth
celebrating if Nigeria advances to the second round, which remains
Nigeria’s best performance in three World Cup appearances. As I wish
Nigerians good luck in the competition I will stick to my resolution
not to watch the Eagles play live today. I do not hate the Eagles. I
just love my heart more. Go, Eagles, go.

Where to start.

Apparently, a legion of government officials is
presently circling around Johannesburg, South Africa – clearly at the
expense of tax payers and other Nigerians.

This band of travellers are ably led by the
President of our Federal Republic, Goodluck Jonathan, the same man who
came into office projecting an aura of frugality and fiscal
responsibility.

The first question immediately arises: What
exactly is Mr. Jonathan doing at the World Cup? Did he go in with the
expectation that there would be something to celebrate? That his team
was indeed worth seeing? That there is a particular function that his
presence would serve in Johannesburg that it wouldn’t from the Federal
Capital Territory in Abuja?

He has been part and leader of a government – as
Vice President, Acting President and then President – that has overseen
one of the world’s worst tournament preparations, amid monumental
corruption, that any nation can cobble together. Apart from that, he
has less than nine months to perform the hardest task in the world:
organising free and fair elections in Nigeria amid suggestions that he
himself will be throwing his hat in the ring. So how does going to
South Africa to witness the opening ceremony of the tournament
factor into this urgent task?

Unfortunately, this sense of misplaced priority,
not to talk of fostering an atmosphere that tempts corruption, is not
limited to His Excellency. Newspaper reports crow of a 13-member
Federal Government delegation led by Senate President David Mark,
including at least two governors and five serving ministers, including
the governors of Ogun, Gbenga Daniel; Borno, Modu Sheriff; Kwara,
Bukola Saraki; Rivers, Rotimi Amaechi; and Delta, Emmanuel Uduaghan as
well as some ministers and top federal officials, who were part of the
advance team that travelled to South Africa ahead of the President.
This is apart from the 62 senators who, last Wednesday night, left
aboard a chartered aircraft from France, Boeing 757-200, for the
fiesta.

It is crucial to note that, at any point in time,
it is difficult to find 62 senators seated in the hallowed chambers
where they work – actually making laws. The ministers have spent less
than two months in office, many without any remarkable signs of
achievement, these are governors who are not remarkable for their sense
of vision and purpose, not to speak of the President who has yet to
demonstrate any urgency in terms of the tasks he has set for himself:
power and electoral reform. As it is, the electoral commission is
unprepared to begin the monumental task of voter registration not to
talk of preparing for the elections proper.

When you add this to the 202 names of football
officials submitted to the South African embassy by our sports
authorities, the thread is clear: this is not a government different
from its predecessors; waste and recklessness continue to define our
governance: it is business as usual.

In an interview with News Agency of Nigeria, the
popular Save Nigeria Group described this as what it is: a waste of
public funds. “As individuals, there is nothing wrong with their going
to watch the World Cup, but as senators going to represent Nigeria, it
is shameful and condemnable. We are talking of the nation’s image
abroad and the senators are making us a laughing stock,” the group
said.

Indeed, laughing stock is the term to use in
describing a nation that celebrates when it should be mourning, one
that travels to a sister nation to celebrate its global coming of age
party while its own people grapple with fundamental issues of survival.
A nation where the levers of its government are allowed to screech to a
halt whilst its key drivers embark on an estacode-powered jamboree.

This is, without mincing any words, a national disgrace.

And it is a disgrace that speaks to a spectacular
failure of judgment that has spread its cancerous limbs across the
length and width of our executive and legislative arms of government.
It is also a calamity because the two arms who are supposed to check
and balance each other have colluded to promote a culture of
triviality. This is of course the same government that plans to expend
N10 billion on the Nigeria @ 50 celebrations – with such inanities as
N100, 000 for a website.

What is worse: there is no hope that this is just a one-off incident, a moment of madness that will pass, no.

As we speak, information in the public space is
that a 200-man delegation is “gearing up” to, in a matter of weeks,
follow the president to the G8 summit in Canada.

One does not even begin to know whether to laugh or cry.

Something
happened to the discourse on bread in Nigeria when Auntie Dora, whom
you know as the “NAFDAC Woman,” tried to teach some bakers that what is
used in preserving a dead body should not be used in preserving a loaf
of bread meant for human consumption. Nigerian consumers of these
loaves were praying, “Give us this day our daily bread” but ironically
the bakers were answering their prayers with “well preserved” loaves of
“dread.” For them, the transformation of bread to dread was a special
work of scientific genius, with the consumer easily crossing the
threshold of life just as in the phonemic space of the word; a “b” that
looks backwards becomes a “d.” If “b” is for “birth” and “d” for death,
then a “b” that has looked back like Lot’s wife to become a “d” has
exhibited the highly appealing condition of life-after-life. Auntie
Dora did not like this tragic discourse and so quickly banned the
production and sale of bromated bread. But that was not the end of “our
daily dread.” It is one thing to deliver bread from bromate and other
poisons and another to protect it as it makes its journey from the
bakery to the dining table. One who observes the handling of loaves of
bread in our markets and streets would in fact wonder whether it would
not have been better for us to ask God to give us our daily “akpu” or
“eba” instead of the kind of loaves that would mean greater wahala for
the consumer.

OK, here is a
playback: a bread vendor is faithfully going round, with naked loaves
on her tray, thinking, perhaps, that a naked loaf is more tempting than
a dressed one. One loaf of bread in search of adventure would roll off
the tray and fall into the gutter. The bread vendor would not tolerate
that impudence: she would pick the disobedient loaf up and then flog it
with a piece of cloth, most probably the one she had made into a pad
and had been using in balancing the tray on her head. Then, when she
has executed the punishment, she would put back the loaf on the tray.
Much later, you could see her trying to impress her customers by using
a duster that wears a serious frown on its face to “clean” the loaves.
A clean loaf needs a massage, always. That, too, is an advertisement
strategy, for someone would see the “retouching” and develop an
appetite.

As I contemplate
turning a bread experience into a S(h)ibboleth essay, a taxi pulls up,
and I can see naked loaves of bread packed in the greasy luggage
carrier and even inside the passenger area of the vehicle. The local
vendors – mostly women – rush in to be the first to buy the naked
loaves. As they say in Igbo, “Anu bu uzo na-anu mmiri oma” (The animal
that reaches the water first takes a clean draught). The women struggle
for the naked loaves and the naked loaves struggle for space on the
trays, cartons, and sacks. Some loaves fall on the ground and are
picked up again and placed on the trays or in the cartons. And each
loaf picks the smell and stain of each space it occupies on its journey
to someone’s mouth.

Minutes later, Mama
Bread-and-Butter begins to make her round, with the loaves not dressed
in transparent cellophane. She stops as a customer beckons her. She has
an itching nostril, and so digs into each nostril with her finger in a
kind of practiced scrub. With the same hand she grabs a loaf and slices
it, then butters it and hands it over to a man waiting. The man takes a
bite and then pays. I am horrified and have to pray to God not to puke.
But within my heart, a heretic prayer is already forming: give us this
day our daily dread! Auntie Dora should hear this, I swear under my
breath. When next she comes, she should inspect the nostrils of Mama
Bread-and-Butter. Auntie Dora should also interview the loaves of bread
so that they could tell her how they make their journey from the bakery
to a man’s mouth, where and how they were dressed and undressed.

As I get ready to
go to church, I have to rehearse Our Lord’s Prayer properly, for if
care is not taken, I could start uttering, “Give us this day our daily
dread” when others are saying “Give us this day our daily bread.”
Someone would think I am devilishly trying to add some bromate into the
bread the Lord is baking for His people.

As
many cheeseburger-loving Americans long feared, soccer has finally
driven the world stark raving mad. Wanting to create an international
buzz in the worst way, the World Cup unleashed something called the
vuvuzela on an unsuspecting planet. Ears bleed from Amsterdam to
Alabama.

And the world screams back: Hey, put a sock in it!
The vuvuzela looks like a harmless plastic trumpet. A mere toy, at
first glance. But more than 500,000 vuvuzelas have descended upon South
Africa, and faster than you can say “Didier Drogba,” tournament
organisers have a plague of white noise that disrupts every game and
disturbs every telecast.

“It’s almost as if South Africa has been invaded
by a million bees,” TV play-by-play announcer Ian Darke bellowed
Sunday. The audio feed sounded as if ESPN was broadcasting from the
dark side of Mars, with the action on the pitch drowned out by the
unrelenting din of vuvuzelas, which can generate a mind-splitting 125
decibels.

For folks who don’t speak the language of soccer,
the buzz is pronounced: voo-voo-ZAY-la. It is sold as a musical
instrument of mass destruction. The vuvuzela poses the greatest threat
to permanent hearing loss at a stadium since Roseanne Barr received a
lifetime ban from singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” These garishly
hued plastic horns cost 3 bucks, are as long as an elephant’s trunk and
threaten to swallow the biggest sporting event in the world.

“We have asked for no vuvuzelas during national
anthems or during stadium announcements,” Danny Jordaan told reporters
in South Africa, admitting his World Cup organising committee has
considered banning the trumpets. “I know it’s a difficult question.
We’re trying to manage it the best we can.” Where on earth did this
fascination for soccer fans blowing their horn begin?

While the exact origin of the word is clouded in
mystery, some intrepid etymologists have traced it to Zulu and believe
when loosely translated, vuvuzela means: Bored to deaf.

At risk of revocation of my natural-born right as
a U.S. citizen to supersize my meals at Mickey D’s, let me confess to
be one American who truly, deeply and passionately loves soccer.

The 1-nil scores don’t upset me. I even kind of
dig the wacko tradition of hooligans trying to burn down bleachers with
flare guns in celebration of a goal. The vuvuzela, however, is turning
a beautiful game into nails on the chalkboard.

This is not to say American ingenuity is without
guilt when devising mindless ways to make a racket inside an athletic
venue. So we will take the rap for the cowbell, the thunderstick and
the immortal wave, where everybody, including your Aunt Nancy, waits to
stand up and be identified as over served.

But as we watched Team USA tie grumpy old England
1-1 on TV, how many millions of Americans had the same immediate
reaction as cyclist Lance Armstrong?

“What is that horn going off in the stadium?”
Armstrong tweeted. After determining the source of the noise pollution,
he chirped, “No offense to the vuvuzela posse but, man, it’s a bit
much.” Aren’t soccer crowds supposed to sing? As rock stars from Paul
Simon to Bono can attest, no continent can lift up its voice in song
the way Africa can.

How hard could it be to set up collection bins
outside every World Cup venue? If Americans will dump bottles of cold
beer before entering an NFL game, then soccer fans can surely be
trained to surrender a vuvuzela at the gate.

Kill the buzz. Please.

For the love of Pele and everything soccer holds sacred, put an end to this endless torture of white noise.

Are we just being ugly Americans to complain? Hey,
don’t make us send Will Ferrell, the “Saturday Night Live” alum who
also played a soccer dad from Hades in the classic soccer movie
“Kicking & Screaming,” to Johannesburg to clean up this mess.

Because do you know the only stadium sound that could be possibly be more annoying than a vuvuzela?

More cowbell.

© The New York Times 2010

Before
Nigeria’s opening World Cup game against Argentina on Saturday, the
belief among many Nigerian football fans was that the Super Eagles
would be thoroughly shamed by their South American opponents.

A number of factors lent weight to this belief. In
the first place, the Argentines are blessed with some of the deadliest
strikers on the planet with the world’s best player, Lionel Messi, in
their fold.

Our fear of a bashing by the Argentines was
heightened by the shambolic preparations of the Eagles going into the
tournament. A new coach was appointed only late February, just three
months to the World Cup, and the Nigeria Football Federation organised
only three friendly matches in the last two weeks before the tournament
commenced.

So, Nigerians figured that with Messi, Carlos
Tevez, Gonzalo Higuain and Diego Milito, who between them tallied over
130 goals for their clubs in the just ended football season, our Eagles
didn’t have a prayer.

As it turned out on Saturday afternoon at the
Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, Argentina only managed a slim
victory with defender Gabriel Heinze’s sixth minute goal making the
difference. It must be conceded however, that the 1-0 does not
accurately reflect the effort and determination of the Argentines.

Indeed, Messi was at his creative best, threading
passes and making dangerous runs into Nigeria’s goal area but was
thwarted again and again by the brilliance of Eagles goalkeeper,
Vincent Enyeama whose valiant efforts deservedly won him the ‘Man of
the match award’.

Our loss to Argentina has continued to generate
debate even as Nigeria’s next group match looms. In situating the loss,
some football pundits have queried Coach Lars Lagerback’s decision to
opt for a 4-4-2 formation, which they claim robbed the players of the
needed latitude to check Messi who repeatedly latched on to the ball
just in front of Nigeria’s last four. They argue that rather than
defend in two lines, which the 4-4-2 formation forced them to do,
Lagerback should have opted for a 4-3-3 formation, which would have
allowed the Eagles to threaten the Argentines whose right back appeared
flustered.

Added to the faulty formation was poor marking by
the Eagles, which provided Messi and his colleagues with acres of space
to explore time and again.

The perceived flaws notwithstanding, it must be
said that the Eagles did well given the circumstances. Under Lagerback
there has been greater discipline among the players as we have seen
from the last three friendly matches and the one against Argentina. The
Eagles are playing with a greater sense of urgency and commitment than
was the case in the past. There is also now a higher level of adherence
to tactics. One clear example is in the area of marking. It is to the
credit of our defenders that despite the intense pressure Messi and the
other Argentine forwards unleashed, they did not overreach themselves
and give away penalties.

All this is not to suggest however that there is
no room for improvement. Nigeria plays Greece on Thursday in an
encounter that is crucial to the quest of both teams to remain in the
tournament. The Greeks are certainly going to have a serious go at the
Eagles knowing that defeat at our hands means the end of the World Cup
for them. The Eagles need to be focused for this match. The
backslapping and chest thumping that followed their ‘survival’ of
Argentina should give way to maximum concentration and determination to
pick the three points on offer in this match. Nigerians expect nothing
less.

The
latest buzzword in the business world is CSR, CSR, and still more CSR.
This acronym stands for Corporate Social Responsibility. It’s the way
the titanic conglomerates, not so gigantic medium and small companies
try and ‘give back’ to the various communities that host them. They
want to improve the conditions of the location, or the people that
reside there. We could also say, that they want to make an impact or
impression on the environs, so that they will be known for doing good
and hopefully, will not be found wanting.

The projects for
giving back to these locales are as varied as the companies are
diverse. Companies in the manufacturing, food and beverage,
telecommunications, banking and financial services, pharmaceutical, the
health service, oil and gas (both upstream and downstream are not left
out!) and we also have faith-based organisations casting in their lot
as well. It must be noted that these players take their commitment
seriously and will go to varying lengths to announce the projects they
have endorsed, committed to implementing, commissioned and completed.

A full page
advertisement in the newspapers, notable mention and video clips of the
event on prominent television stations, are just a few of the ways that
they ensure that their corporate responsibility is heralded to the
world. This is not a bad thing and like all systems that work, it
should be a symbiotic relationship between the host community and
corporations that operate there.

When the business
entity made it’s advent into the community, it was announced one way or
the other, and as such when it decides to invest where it previously
had only a commercial interest it should also be trumpeted, because
this means that the relationship has evolved to the advantage of both
parties.

Education, health,
poverty alleviation, HIV/AIDS, youth empowerment, are just some of the
projects that are making their mark in various societies. Sometimes, a
combination of a few of the aforementioned is incorporated into a
project at different stages of its implementation. The youth, very
young children, women, men, and even the elderly are not left out of
the drive to improve the quality of life they presently enjoy.

A productive way is
found for the youth to utilise their time, immunisation and other
health care may be devised for the children and their mothers;
health-care management and provision of attendant services for the
elderly, destitute and widows. As stated earlier making a mark takes
different routes. In all the betterment of the society and the people
from which they benefit is the driving force of these corporate
citizens.

Self-enlightenment
or interest is the driving force behind these projects, after all, how
can you benefit from your operational environs when there’s
deterioration in these conditions. Ultimately, one or both of the
entities in the situation suffers and most likely may cease to exist in
their original form in that location. Thus, investing in communities
and people ensures the longevity of the companies and their structures,
whilst serving the community that accommodates them.

Although companies
have demonstrated their willingness to be accountable and
correspondingly dependable, they have also made themselves vulnerable
at the selfsame time. This is because with their investment in these
local communities, they have taken identified and acknowledged that
they will no longer be passive and content to watch things happen, but
will be involved in making them happen. It thus, behoves them to ensure
that the CSR projects that they commission and implement in different
locations, be sustainable.

Merely donating
expensive equipment, or building different infrastructures that cannot
be locally maintained by the materials sourced from that community or
its immediate environs should not be initiated at all. This means that
adequate research into what benefits can be derived from a particular
scheme and also how these benefits can be optimised should be of utmost
consideration when our able corporate citizens seek to demonstrate
their largesse once more, after all that is part of being a responsible
corporate entity in the society.

I am not old enough
to remember the magical days of Clockwork Oranje, when the Dutch
national side dazzled planet football with their awesome combination of
skillful passing and dynamic movement. It was dubbed “total football”
for good reason. The Netherlands lost back-to-back World Cup finals in
1974 and 1978, and that heartbreak has not been forgotten by a nation
who has constantly flattered to deceive in FIFA’s showpiece event. Now,
however, they have all the ingredients necessary to come out on top.

In my opinion, this
is an extremely balanced side. Arjen Robben’s impact has been keenly
anticipated, and even though the Bayern Munich winger’s chances of
beating injury to take part now look slim, there are so many weapons in
his team’s arsenal. Robin van Persie should be raring to go following a
season where he rarely played for Arsenal. Wesley Sneijder must be on
cloud nine following a historic treble with Inter for whom he was
instrumental. And let us not forget the influential Mark van Bommel who
sets the tone in the centre of the park. Defensively, they have plenty
of talent as well. John Heitinga and Joris Mathijsen have formed a
solid partnership in the centre of defence.

One final word
about the coach. Bert van Marwijk has been able to nurse some big egos
in the squad and convince his players to work hard for each other. Do
not forget the Netherlands have not lost since September of 2008 and
that momentum will help them immensely in South Africa.

Overachievers – Serbia and Uruguay

Not many people
have talked about either of these sides leading up to the World Cup,
but I believe they will turn some heads and can both make the
quarterfinals. Let’s start with Serbia. They have the right mix of
experience and youth in a squad which offers veteran coach Radomir
Antic plenty of options. Their defence is led by tough tackler Nemanja
Vidic, and their midfield is marshalled by Champions League winner
Dejan Stankovic. Add giant striker Nikola Zigic, and speedy winger
Milos Krasic to the mix, and you have a very dangerous team.

Uruguay will also
surprise a lot of football fans. They have enough quality to navigate
pass an unpredictable first round group and can reach the last eight of
the competition. With experienced coach Oscar Tabarez calling the
shots, and Diego Forlan firing in the goals, this is a team that cannot
be underestimated. La Celeste’s defence will be tough to beat. Diego
Lugano is a lion back there, and their wing-backs Diego Godin and Jorge
Fucile are extremely versatile.

Underachievers – Germany and Italy

They have seven
World Cup titles between them, but both Germany and Italy will be going
home early in 2010. Without Michael Ballack, Joachim Low’s side will
struggle to assert themselves in the competition and won’t get past the
quarterfinals. All of their strikers had poor seasons, and I just don’t
see too many exciting players in their line-up. As always, they will be
solid in defence, but will find it difficult to hit the back of the net.

As far as the
defending champions are concerned, the Italians could be heading home
after the round of 16. They are old, slow and predictable. With
midfield maestro Andrea Pirlo struggling for fitness, the Azzuri will
miss a playmaker who can make a difference. Defender Fabio Cannavaro is
past his best, and the same can be said for most of the players in
their starting line-up.

Other notables – Argentina, Spain and England

Argentina will lose
in the final to the Netherlands after beating Spain in the semifinals.
The defending Euro 2008 champions could still win it all but they have
had too many injury problems leading up to the World Cup. I can’t see
their top players staying in top shape and top form throughout the
tournament. As far as England are concerned, they will lose to the
Netherlands in the semifinals, which would still be a good result for
Fabio Capello’s men.

Player of the tournament – Lionel Messi

After scoring a
whopping 47 goals in 53 games in all competitions for Barcelona, Messi
will light the tournament on fire. He has been criticized for his poor
scoring record with Argentina (only four goals in qualifying) but that
will change in South Africa. Diego Maradona will use him in a more
central role, and little Leo will shine like never before in his
nation’s legendary number 10 shirt.

Top scorer – David Villa

One of the
deadliest strikers in the game today, Villa will benefit from playing
with assist master Xavi and he will score at least six goals in the
competition. With Fernando Torres struggling for fitness, the new
Barcelona signing will lead the Spain attack and celebrate plenty of
goals in South Africa.

France qualified for the World Cup in large part because of an uncalled hand ball by Thierry Henry last November.

So it was a bit
rich to see Henry, the aging French striker, imploring the referee to
call a hand ball against an opponent with the minutes ticking down on
France’s opening game, against Uruguay.

But there would be
no blown whistle this time either after Henry’s short-range shot
ricocheted off Mauricio Victorino’s right arm – held tightly by
Victorino’s side – in front of the Uruguay goal. There would be no
penalty kick for France and no goals at all in a 0-0 tie that was
hardly a bore but not nearly a match for the end-to-end spectacle of
the day’s other game in Group A between South Africa and Mexico.

The commonality was
the soundtrack: with the South African horns, the vuvuzelas, providing
a constant drone inside Cape Town’s new seaside stadium at Green Point.

“It’s frustrating
not to win,” France coach Raymond Domenech said. “We were not quite
precise and serene enough with our finishing, and they defended well.”

But even without
goals – and both the Frenchman Sidney Govou and the Uruguayan star
Diego Forlan had fine chances – there was still plenty of news. It has
been an extended, unsettled phase for the French team, which reached
the final in the 2006 World Cup in Germany but has struggled to
reproduce that sort of form in the four-year interim.

On Friday, Domenech
juggled his lineup, leaving midfielder Florent Malouda on the bench and
abandoning the attack-minded 4-3-3 formation that he had used in
preparatory matches. Instead, Domenech reverted to a 4-2-3-1 formation,
with Nicolas Anelka the lone striker and Jeremy Toulalan and the
surprise pick Abou Diaby playing defensive midfield positions in front
of France’s back four.

Diaby, a tall and
physical presence who can also dribble through traffic, looked very
much like he belonged, particularly in the first half, even though he
had not started a match for France since 2007.

What added intrigue
to the lineup shift was a report in the French news media that Domenech
and Malouda had clashed in a training session Thursday because Malouda
had been too aggressive during drills, putting his teammates at risk.
Domenech and Malouda, who came on as a substitute in the 75th minute,
denied those reports.

“Sometimes,
depending on the opponent, I make choices rather than others,” Domenech
said. “No player is sure to play the whole World Cup until the end.
It’s tiring, draining and you have to rotate. I started tonight.”

Domenech has
gradually become an unpopular figure in France and will be replaced
after the tournament by Laurent Blanc, one of the stars of the 1998
team that won the Cup in France.

Part, if only part,
of Domenech’s image problem has been results. France failed to advance
out of the first round at the 2008 European Championships. And in order
to qualify here, it needed that hand ball from Henry that led directly
to its late and decisive goal against Ireland.

The Irish have not
forgotten. Domenech fielded a question from an Irish reporter Thursday
about whether the French deserved to be here (the answer was “oui”).

And among those in
the capacity crowd of 64,100 on Friday were Kevin Daly and a group of
young Irishmen dressed in green and carrying a large poster that read
“Team 33”: a reference to early suggestions from soccer officials that
Ireland just might get to be the 33d team in the World Cup after the
injustice of its elimination.

That never materialised.

“We bought our
tickets a year and a half ago, and obviously we hoped that Ireland
would be here, but when we ended up with France tickets, we thought
obviously that it was a great chance to protest,” said Daly, a
26-year-old from Ennis who works for a public relations firm in Dublin.

Henry’s career has
hardly flourished recently. He played sparingly late in the season for
his talent-packed Spanish club team, Barcelona, which explains in part
why, at 32, he is no longer in his national team’s starting lineup.
Instead, he is considering a late-career move to the Red Bulls of Major
League Soccer.

But Henry remains
an icon in France, and he is the first French player to compete in four
World Cups. On Friday, he received a loud ovation from the South
African and French fans when he loped into the game in the 72nd minute
as a replacement for Anelka. Nine minutes later, France had a man
advantage after Uruguay’s Nicolas Lodeiro was sent off after receiving
a second yellow card from the Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura. But
though Henry and France applied plenty of pressure after Lodeiro was
sent off in the 81st minute, down the stretch, there would be no goal
and no hand ball either. An Irish reporter asked the French players
afterward if that might not have been a form of justice.

“Why are you
talking about this again?” asked the French captain Patrice Evra. “It’s
finished now. I think that’s the past, the past. We are here.”

So are the other three teams in Group A. For now, they all have one point.

© 2010 New York Times News Service