WORLD CUP 2010: The perspicacious ones

By OMOSEYE BOLAJI

And so the sporting extravaganza, the cornucopia of football embracing the whole world kicks off Friday (11th June) in South Africa! Many might not appreciate this, but this awesome achievement is the culmination of a slow, global, eclectic process that nobody would have imagined just a short while ago.

The modern world, as we know it today replete with incredible scientific gadgets and such ancillaries, owes a huge debt of gratitude to the original pioneers, the fantastic men of vision, the perspicacious ones; men and women who selflessly dreamt that one day marvels like electricity, Television, aeroplanes, vehicles, radio etc would be invented.

During their time, such great people were often regarded as madmen by their peers. How could the things they were working on, trying to invent, ever come into fruition? Hardly anybody ever supported or encouraged them. Just over 150 years ago, the things which are common place now hardly existed in the world. But thanks to the great ones, the perspicacious ones, the profound inventors, these things that looked like miracles in those days are now common place even in Africa.

And so as the World Cup comes to Africa from this weekend, let us pay our tributes to these all-time greats who shook and changed the world: people like Galileo Galili, Marconi, Michael Faraday (the inventor of electricity in particular)

And what about Alexander Bell? (the telephone), John L Baird (Television) Orville and Wilbur Wright (the aeroplane), George Stephenson (the locomotive), George Eastman (camera), Guthenberg (printing)...

But as we are celebrating football in particular today, we must commend the great foresight of gentlemen like Jules Rimet (France) who about a century ago dreamt of the idea of the World Cup, and little by little made it work. Now the Fifa football World Cup is the greatest show on earth with unbelievable media and electronic coverage thanks to early inventors!!!

It is apposite to express fulsome kudos and thanks to those who made this incredible celebration of football hosted in Africa for the first time ever from June 11 a reality: from the goodwill and bonhomie of Fifa President Sepp Blatter, world icon Nelson Mandela - to the painstaking, Herculean efforts of former President Thabo Mbeki, and now Jacob Zuma, Danny Joordan who has laboured in this wise for almost 20 years; Irvine Khoza etc...

Of course one is not happy that so many injuries to pivotal players have hit squads, even up till the eve of the tournament. Top-notch players like Michael Ballack (Germany), Nani (Portugal), Rio Ferdinand (England), Arjen Robben (Holland), Didier Drogba (Ivory Coast). But assuredly the tournament will still be of the highest quality.

And of course this columnist, like countless other African football lovers, is solidly behind Bafana Bafana, Nigeria, and other African king-pins in soccer, to do the continent proud. History is being made in gargantuan, mammoth fashion and we are all proud of it. Let the games begin with gusto…