So just when all of the African players leave Europe to play for the African Cup of Nations tragedy has to strike. The Togo team which features Manchester City player Emmanuel Adebayor pulled out of the tournament after their bus was attacked on Friday in Angola. The bus driver was killed along with two others I believe. Apparently all weekend long the team has flip flopped about whether or not they would remain to play. Obviously the other European teams wanted to pull their Togo players out of there incase lightning struck twice. The Togo team was told that they would be disqualified if they did not play Ghana on Monday (today). Shouldn't these players get a chance of mourning before getting thrown onto the pitch (field)?
It sucks that real life interferes with sports and players must make decisions about playing. Weeks ago, Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry jumped/fell out of the bed of his own truck that his fiancee was driving and tragically passed away. If any of you saw the players being interviewed in the locker room leading up to their Sunday game that week you would see that they were clearly distraught. Chad Ochocinco (or is it back to Johnson?) was in tears, who knew this guy had feelings?! It's a shame that they had to grieve their loss and then play a game without their teammate, a game which they would end up losing in the final minutes mind you.
Granted some players/teams bounce back from such tragedies. Brett Favre opted to play Monday Night Football after the passing of his father and ended up throwing what, four? five touchdowns that night? The New York Yankees showed their city that even after 9/11 there was still enough spunk in them to make it to the World Series, win 3 games in New York in NOVEMBER and make it to Game 7.
In reality, the African Cup of Nations is just getting us ready for the World Cup. Egypt, the most recent champion of the African Cup and most successful champion with 16 titles is not even IN the World Cup this year!!
Oh and by the way, with Togo out of the African Cup, Didier Drogba my favorite flopper from Chelsea should have no problem leading his Ivory Coast team to winning Group B with a mere three teams in the grouping now. Look for the Ivory Coast to try and make a push out of their grouping in the World Cup as well though they do have Brazil and Portugal with them.
Rock on
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Professional sports have become and will continue to be a vital part of many cities and communities throughout the world. You provided the best examples of how sports teams can bring a city and even a country together (NYY after 9/11), providing an example of how one can rise above heartache and raw emotion after losing a loved one and perform almost flawlessly (Brett Favre and also Tiger Woods, though I understand why you may of kept his name off this list), and you also showed how unfortunately professional sports are a business and in the end it comes down to who is making money.
ReplyDeleteThe attack on the Togo team should not only alarm World Cup officials but it should expose the problems and inner country conflict that is occurring in Africa. To have the World Cup in South Africa, I not only think is a wonderful idea, but will only allow African teams to take great pride in their countries and hopefully perform better being on their “home” field. Unfortunately though, there are still many problems in South Africa with the rise in HIV, prostitution, racism, poverty and government issues to name a few.
The attack on the Togo national team may only be the beginning and I hope that World Cup officials are not only taking this seriously, but taking necessary security precautions. It is unfortunate that this team may not participate and forgo a spot in the World Cup because they were singled out to be attacked.
My hope is that bringing the World Cup to South Africa this will raise awareness to the issues and conflicts that are occurring and how many Africans are living in hostile, impoverished communities. This could be an effective way to use professional sports to advocate for world affairs in a cultured, distinguished way.
How do you justify a sporting event being more important than life itself? Isn't it just a game. Hasn't it always been? Now I understand that many nations of the world put a great deal of pride in their sports teams and athletes but shouldn't it play second fiddle to a matter of life and death?
ReplyDeleteAs an outsider I can't begin to understand the problems that are going on in Africa. This is a terrible tragedy from an international standpoint. This attack should not be taken lightly and should be used to really bring the problems in Africa to the forefront of international issues.
With the World Cup upcoming in June, it will be important for tourists and players to realize the pending issues with the African Contenient. I just hope everyone can enjoy the games in a safe and professional manner.
As for the open spot, why not include a team that should have been in. This is FIFA's chance to include the likes of Ireland who was victim to a poor call a month ago in a qualifiying match against France. Take this terrible event and make a positive out of it.