ZAMBIANS CRUISE TO EXQUISITE VICTORY

(above) Unbridled glee for Zambia

By OMOSEYE BOLAJI

The latest edition of the Africa Nations Cup (Afcon) has of course
ended, with the form book being turned on its head in devastating
fashion. Surely not even one “pundit” predicted that Zambia would cart
away the prized Cup?

It was a rather “strange” competition from the beginning.
Extraordinarily, big guns like Nigeria, Cameroon, Egypt and South
Africa did not even qualify for the tournament. There was the fear
that millions of fans in countries like Nigeria and South Africa would
hardly be interested in the finals itself.

But largely, this did not happen for a number of reasons which we need
not go into here. Suffice it to say that as genuine, authentic
football-loving countries, by the time the tournament proper started
the usual interest began to fulminate. After all African giants (in
soccer) like Ivory Coast, Ghana, Senegal, even Tunisia – the first
African country to cause upsets at the World Cup – were there.

Other countries who were strong enough to give the best in the
continent a run for their money were also present; eg Zambia
(incredibly undermined by most), Angola, co-hosts Gabon (often tricky
opponents), Mali, even Guinea. Nobody expected Equatorial Guinea to
pull up any trees but this is exactly what they did by winning the
opening game of the tournament against Libya (1-0).Equatorial Guinea
did magnificently to get to the quarter finals.

But very unexpectedly, Senegal disappointed not only their own home
fans, but millions around the continent. They lost all their matches
with none of their star names shining; not least the celebrated Demba
Ba (of Newcastle in England) who made no mark whatsoever on the
tournament. But at least the two “firm favourites”, Ghana and Ivory
Coast made it to the semi finals.

Earlier, in South Africa the interest of most of the fans was on any
progress made by any of the Southern African teams: Angola, Zambia and
Botswana. Zambia impressively made it to the semi finals and many
South Africans were delighted about with this. Naturally most of them
wanted Zambia to win against Ghana in the semi finals but they did not
believe it would happen.

As for many Nigerians and other west Africans staying in South Africa,
though they wanted to support fellow west Africans Ghana in the semi
finals, it appeared that the “arrogant” stance of many Ghanaians in SA
put so many off. I know as a matter of fact that when I wished
Ghanaians “good luck” ahead of their semi final match (with Zambia)
the retort was: “Don’t wish us luck. We have already won! The only
thing is how many goals are we are gonna score against hapless
Zambians,”

Alas, Ghana lost the crucial semi final match with marksman Asamoah
Gyan missing another crucial penalty award that could have made a big
difference to the eventual result. It was a victory that many South
Africans celebrated to the rafters: apart from Zambia being a southern
African country, many of the players in the squad plied their trade in
the South African league. Their much respected captain, Chris Katongo
although no longer playing in South Africa had been a household name
whilst playing for Jomo Cosmos (in SA).

The Zambians, the pundits pointed out, played like a cohesive unit; a
veritable team. But would this be enough to pull off an upset against
the star-studded Ivorian team in the final? Nigerians and other west
Africans based in South Africa of course wanted Ivory Coast to win –
including this columnist! On my own part I genuinely believed that
aging Ivorian players like Drogba, Zokora, the Toure brothers etc more
than deserved to win something major after so many years of falling by
the wayside

For Zambia the final was a date with destiny, as it were. Here they
were playing in the same area where they had lost virtually a whole
team in an aeroplane accident almost 20 years ago. And the “gods”
favoured Zambia in the final as dreaded Ivorian marksman Didier Drogba
could not convert a penalty...and in the ensuing penalty shoot-out the
Zambians carried the day. It was a victory celebrated luridly in
Southern African countries. Congratulations to them!