Let’s kick off with the lighter side of things, shall we?
Three fans were talking about the sad state of their local club;
The first fan blamed…: “I blame the manager; if we could sign better players, we’d be a great club.”
The second fan blamed…: “I blame the players; if they made more effort, I’m sure we would score more goals.”
The third fan blamed…: “I blame my parents; if I had been born in a different town, I’d be supporting a decent team.”
Interesting; with cubs you’ve alternative wishes of “being born in another city” or something like that to lessen the pain of losing. But we’re talking here about our national soccer teams and don’t blame us for being unhappy about the state of our soccer.
By the way, though we don’t have any polls or verifiable data most Ethiopians seemed to be hooked to the EPL and other European leagues for the simple reason that soccer around here seems to have been frozen in time. You could rewind three decades or so back into history and find teams which were far, far better than the ones we have been seeing as of recent years. This is not about nostalgia, but about real, hard facts.
They haven’t been good couple of weeks for our national soccer team. Not an unexpected story at all. But fans who watched love matches aren’t happy at all and with good reasons too. When, oh when, will our soccer go anywhere near to most of other African teams! In this case even wild guesses are hard to come by.
Yes, things in that particular area look so bleak. Look, if you don’t mind my saying so I’m not optimistic things would get better anytime soon. The public is hearing rhetoric it has been hearing for so long and is tired of the whole replay. Practically no one talks about the real issues. You know issues like what are the real cusses which are preventing our football from improving. Why is that in this age when practically scores and scores of Africans play in the higher leagues of Europe we’re nowhere to be seen on the international scene?
Over the years I’ve developed this feeling why should I make my day cloudy knowing the most probable outcome, defeat. The past days I said maybe it is high time I watch our national team playing. I wasn’t impressed. Not only that I wasn’t impressed I was left saying, “You can do nothing about our football until you’re ready to do everything to add a little life to it.
He very structure is old as old could be. During the military rule there was football everywhere. Though the higher ups were no better than present days at least youth in villages got the chance to play. Football was everywhere. Kebeles had tams. Keftegnas had teams, cities and towns had teams. And remember we won the East and Central African cup in the most impressive of ways. Competitions were all over the place. But the way how everything was run was not very impressive. Behind the curtain the county’s soccer took big hits from political interference, corruption, favoritism and all the wrong things. Poorly trained players lacking the motivation the sport demands, poorly trained and even more poorly paid referees most of who seem to have crucial issues of confidence.
Someone was quoted as saying though we have missed participation in the African Cup we have good chances of joining the world cup. Now, isn’t that one hell of an optimistic soul! “It’s better to aim high and lose than to aim low and win,” Elvis Priestly is quoted as saying. So it is alright to dream high. But even in dreams there must some aspect the dreams are a little ‘too high!’
By the way if you’re a regular EPL fan you can’t have missed when Fulham’s Mitrovic went off the rails and did what he shouldn’t have done. Losing his control when a penalty was awarded against them he didn’t only try to confront the referee he actually sort of pushed his arm getting the immediate red card. Look that guy has real talents, but his temper which for long spells seem to have been bottled down resurface in the most unlikely of situations and he takes the heat. The outstanding calls are for him to be suspended for the remaining part of the season. If you think that’s harsh well you might be a nice innocent person; but you’ve missed the volumes such an action tells. Of course after days and maybe mulling about his actions Mitrovic has apologized.
“On a personal level, I regret my actions that led to me being sent off. I allowed my frustration to get the better of me, and how I reacted was wrong,” he said in a statement posted on the club’s website so it was reported. I have accepted the three-match ban for my red card, I have spoken to Chris Kavanagh to apologize, and I have volunteered to accept a club fine. I now want to do what I can to put this incident behind me and get back to helping my teammates on the pitch as soon as possible.”
One of the outstanding problems that has hurt our soccer, many would agree, is the level of discipline on the field. At times that the referee mobbed by angry and mean faced players almost every one of them shouting at him seems to be the most disrespected guy in town. Unless we smooth such rough edges, quite a lot of which we seem to have, our soccer wouldn’t go anywhere further.
How about wrapping it with a really good joke;
Hours after the end of the world, a border dispute emerged between heaven and hell. God invited the devil for conversations to find a way to resolve this dispute quickly. Satan, the devil, proposed a soccer game between heaven and hell.
God, always fair, told the devil, “The heat must be affecting your brain, the game would be so one sided, don’t you know all the ‘good’ players go to heaven?”
The devil, smiling, responded, “Yeah, but we’ve got all the refs’…”
I think if our soccer ever to make any impact the only way across is a complete overhaul of the sport. Dream global, work local! (Does that make any sense?)
The Ethiopian Herald April 2/2023