adminThe Miracle in the Andes provided the plot that gave birth to a number of movies and documentaries as a shocked world struggled to understand how those gallant individuals had defied the odds to remain alive, without food and heat, at 3600m on that mountain range.
When their food supplies ran out, the survivors of that plane crash turned into cannibals, feeding on the remains of those who had perished in the accident and using the snow to keep the human flesh fresh for consumption.
The disaster in the Atlantic, when the mega ship struck an iceberg and sank, also gave birth to movies, notably James Cameron’s blockbuster Titanic, and when you watch Leonardo Di Caprio’s final moments, in those frozen waters, it engages your spirit.
There were 710 survivors in the Titanic tragedy and 16 people survived to tell their stories about the Miracle in the Andes.
Human beings are blessed with this indomitable spirit to battle to odds.
And while the events in the Camp Nou on Tuesday night were not on the scale of what happened in the Andes and in the Atlantic, they certainly were another demonstration of supreme defiance by a group of individuals who simply refused to be swallowed by the sheer force of what they were fighting against.
It was football’s own survival miracle and the beauty about this was that it was played before a global audience, which followed every step and every movement, live through the magic of satellite television.
Never before, in the history of world football, had a group of individuals been so tested, by an opposition of such overwhelming strength, in such an intimidating theatre that had been turned into a burial ground of all and sundry, and emerged out of it with severe bruises, shattered limbs and a triumph to boot.
Because world football had never seen a team like Barcelona, with seven or eight starters who combined to beat the entire globe in the colours of their national team at the World Cup just two years ago, we are probably right to argue that Chelsea’s spectacular resistance was the first such magnificent act in the game.
Because world football had never seen a player like Lionel Messi, adding value to a Dream Team of Spanish stars good enough to be world champions on their own, we are probably right to suggest that Chelsea’s remarkable defensive act had never been seen before in this game.
Because world football had never seen a coach like Pep Guardiola, who explodes on the scene and wins 13 different types of silverware in just four years, guiding the Dream Team of Barca, we are maybe right to believe that Chelsea’s incredible defensive show was a first.
Because XI men are not expected to have any chance at Camp Nou, if you don’t have a magician like Ronaldo in your team, seeing the 10-men of Chelsea do what they did, and turn it all into a success story against a background of the pounding they received, was probably a miracle.
Like Titanic, it happened in April and, while it was certainly not like the Miracle in the Andes, in those 90 minutes of intense heat that were as close to a blitzkrieg as we can ever get in football, the supermen of Chelsea performed a miracle that might need years to be fully appreciated.
Eighty percent of the time the ball was with an opposition roared on by its home crowd, ninety percent of the time the ball was in their own half, seventy-five percent of the time it was moving close to their penalty area than the centre circle but, somehow, the men from Stamford Bridge managed to hang on.
Xavi sprayed more passes than the entire Chelsea team but still the Londoners hanged on.
They weren’t ugly, Didier Drogba fell on fewer occasions than he did at Stamford Bridge, they didn’t plunge into dangerous bone-crushing tackles against Messi, they simply stuck to their game plan, the blue mass of defensive troops in which the Ivorian turned into a good leftback, and, got their breaks of luck.
Chelsea gave world football a coaching manual of how to play against a superior opposition, of the value of teamwork on a day when they played more Total Football than the great Dutch team of the ‘70s that reached two World Cup finals, of the importance of the never-say-die spirit, of courage and passion.
It was like watching Muhamad Ali in the Rumble In The Jungle in Kinshasa, against the mighty force of George Foreman, with the Greatest using his defensive rope-a-dope style, taking in everything his superior punching opponent could throw at him while using the ropes for balance, and tiring him with every round.
Then, in a flash, Ali landed the devastating blows that ended the fight and where the Greatest swings the knockout punch, you can replace that with an image of Fernando Torres, the run that came from nowhere, the composure to go around the ‘keeper, the goal that spelt the end.
There were lessons for us all, for Barca as much as for our Dynamos, who plunge into battle in Tunisia today against a superior opponent but with the knowledge that this game does not only serve the interests of the strong ones, or the home teams for that matter.
Esperance’s Borrowed Robes
Callisto Pasuwa described his team’s assignment in Tunis today as an adventure in the lion’s den and you feel the young coach has a big point because opponents, right now, do not come any bigger than Esperance on the continent.
The mere fact that they won the Champions League last year gives them the right to the bragging rights although the machinations of Caf, who expelled TP Mazembe from the tournament when the Congolese giants had done little wrong, devalued Esperance’s golden moment.
That Esperance were the team that raised the dust, accusing Mazembe of fielding their player in their victories over Simba SC and Wydad Casablanca, and ended up being the biggest beneficiaries of the Congolese side’s expulsion, made them culpable.
That Wydad Casablanca benefited from Mazembe’s expulsion, after they had been defeated by the Congolese giants, on the basis of a complaint they raised and which was supported by Esperance, to play in the final, also made it all look weird.
That Fifa nullified the Mazembe expulsion, after ruling that the Congolese giants hadn’t flouted any rules and regulations in their registration of the player and were right to use him, exposed not only Caf, who kicked them out, but also Esperance and Waydad who cooked up the complaint.
You feel that, with everything that happened to Mazembe last year, the unfair way they were kicked out, the conspiracy hatched by Esperance and Wydad and the part played by the buffoons at Caf, the Champions League did not produce a credible winner.
You felt that the shadow of the best team, which had won the tournament twice in the past two years and had become the first African side to reach the final of the Fifa World Club Cup, but had been thrown out of the Champions League under questionable circumstances, hung over the tournament.
If Esperance were Macbeth and the Champions League was a classic tragicomedy penned by Shakespeare, they would have asked this big question: “The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?”
The Thane of Cawdor, in this case, was Mazembe.
It’s certain that Mazembe would have won last year’s Champions League, for the third straight year, and today Dynamos would probably have been playing against the losing finalists rather than the champions of Africa.
No matter how Esperance will try to defend the way they won the coveted crown last year, it will always be a tainted adventure because the best team was wrongly elbowed out of the tournament and because the Tunisians played a big role in that foul act.
Football, by its nature, is not a fair game but you feel the unfairness is more pronounced in Africa and the Champions League has been turned by the buffoons at Caf into a jungle where survival is for the fittest and rules are bent to accommodate the interests of teams from North and West Africa.
We love the Champions League in this country because we believe it is a tournament that provides the ultimate test for our teams and when Dynamos reached the final in ’98, we all joined them, as one united nation, basking in the glow that came from their success.
Every year, we are cheated by these North and West African teams and we all watched in horror last year as the Glamour Boys were conned by that team from Algeria who worked in tandem with that referee from Egypt.
But every year we go back into the tournament, even when we know that we will be cheated, hoping against hope that our goodwill will one day triumph, that our spirit will one day carry us through, that our faith will one day conquer the devils.
Sometimes you feel we are naïve, just like Grade One kids, who believe that John Cena is the greatest athlete in the world, because we simply can’t see the obvious.
Sometimes you feel we are foolish, just like John Terry when he is subjected under intense pressure, and we believe that our innocence will triumph against the evil cartel that dominates the African game and one good day our enthusiasm will carry us through.
The South Africans won’t say it publicly but most of them have long lost confidence and interest in these Caf competitions and Kaizer Chiefs have not played in a Caf inter-club tournament for almost a decade now.
I’m pretty sure that we will be given a raw deal in Tunis today because that is the nature of these North African teams and while it might not be as horrible as the nightmare in Algiers last year, it’s likely to be bad all the same. The challenge is on Pasuwa and his men, as they enter the lion’s den, to retain their dignity because, out there in that jungle, they are waiting for the Glamour Boys to lose their cool, just like what happened in Algiers last year, and the killing can be easy.
It’s a tough battle, against a team wearing borrowed robes that don’t fit, and Dynamos have the advantage that unlike last year, they have the second leg in their home ground and that means quite a lot.
All They Need Is The Blue Spirit
In the week that Chelsea went to the Camp Nou and performed one of the greatest defensive shows in the history of the game to defy the odds and eliminate the champions, Dynamos can pick a number of lessons from that performance ahead of their show today.
Yes, they are underdogs but Chelsea were even worse, if you consider the odds, and that they played a big chunk of the game a man short, but still made it, was a triumph for their indomitable spirit.
It’s that blue spirit that Dynamos badly want, as they plunge into battle today, that belief that they are never beaten, that confidence that Esperance, just like Barcelona, are just human, that courage that they are not fighting a machine but battling a group of men. They need heroes, like Ramires on Tuesday night, to accept the challenge on behalf of the Glamour Boys and become the symbol of their resistance with a performance that will overshadow everyone else.
They need teamwork, like Chelsea on Tuesday night, so that they combine the sum of their strengths and, together and forever, they battle for the cause of their great club and their great nation. They need passion, like Frank Lampard on Tuesday night, so that they play with a rhythm that shows they are not in this battle to lose and, in the very unlikely event that they are to go down, they will do so after a very big fight. They need pride, like that Blue Army on Tuesday night, so that they don’t get bogged down by an inferiority complex simply because they are playing the African champions.
They need belief, like Peter Cech and Ashley Cole and Ivanovic and Bosingwa, who were united in believing that they could not be beaten on Tuesday night, even when they were facing the mighty Lionel Messi, and they will see that this assignment can be passed.
Chelsea showed us on Tuesday night that football isn’t necessarily a game that is won by the team that has the best players but, now and again, can also be won by teams that are less talented but have more hunger to reach the Promised Land.
The Blues showed us that night that there is value in experience, with Didier Drogba turning on a hearty show either leading the line of attack or as a makeshift leftback, and in Takesure Chinyama, Dynamos have a man with such experience.
Every stage can’t be as big as the Uefa Champions League showdown that we saw at the Camp Nou on Tuesday night but the lessons that came from that game can be used for any contest in world football.
You feel, in that contest, that Esperance are Barcelona, because just like the Catalan giants, they are the defending champions.
Dynamos are Chelsea because, just like the Stamford Bridge side, the Glamour Boys’ identity will forever be defined by their blue and white colour.
That DeMbare fans have adopted the blue-and-white Chelsea replica jersey as their label, and seeing thousands of them wearing that shirt at Rufaro, underlines the informal relationship between the two clubs.
So, in the week that Chelsea staged that remarkable show in the lion’s den and escaped, not only with their lives but with the carcass of the slain jungle king, Dynamos should draw lessons from that when they plunge into their battle in Tunisia today.
Defiance is a virtue and when you have been in a tough fight, like Chelsea on Tuesday night and Muhamad Ali in Zaire in the Rumble in the Jungle, and you emerge out of it with a victory to take home, despite all the battering that you have received, you deserve credit.
It’s that blue spirit that Dynamos needs today and, in the week that even Fernando Torres scored, my word, anyone else can score and, crucially, any away goal for the Glamour Boys in Tunis will be key.
The World Of Social Media
One of the big things that have come along in recent years is social media and Facebook and Twitter are changing the way we see the world, the way we live and the way we connect with our buddies.
Facebook and Twitter are also changing the way football is reported and analysed and, suddenly, we now have millions of microbloggers who use every available opportunity to tell us what they think of a certain game, a certain player, a certain coach, a certain journalist and a certain newspaper. In an era where ZBC have turned their back on the live coverage of the domestic Premiership on their radio stations, we now have people using their mobile phones to get information about what is going on at Rufaro or Barbourfields with a host of fans, watching the matches live, giving regular updates.
Even in England, the social media heat is on and I was reading a piece from one of my favourite English football writers, Henry Winter of the Daily Telegraph, who wrote passionately about microblogging and how it was changing the way the game is reported.
“From Ashley Young’s unpopular testing of Newton’s theory of gravity at Old Trafford to some Chelsea fans’ ugly chants and Juan Mata’s ‘ghost goal’ at Wembley, Sunday demonstrated graphically how much the match-going experience has been transformed by the social-networking revolution,” wrote Winter.
“Within seconds of each incident debates raged on Twitter, castigating or defending Young, condemning that minority of Chelsea’s support and publishing photographs apparently showing Mata’s ball over the line. Or not?
“It is all about the 90 minutes and the 140 characters, the millions who form the twittering classes gathering around a virtual water-cooler.
“Inside the stadium, it is interactive overdrive. It is not just enough to be there; many fans feel fully involved only when they have passed judgment. It is X Factor on the terraces with tweets for texts.
“Those at home or in the pub join in too. It is a free-for-all via Blackberry and iPhone. Many voices, many verdicts. It is the Tower of Babel meets the Tower of London.”
It’s the same in this country and while Twitter is the medium of choice in Europe, here it’s Facebook and on any Sunday, the social media sites will be buzzing with updates, comments, judgments, insults, you name it.
I’m a big fan of technology and I have always said that newspapers have to change their game or else one day they will wake up and see that the train has left.
Newspapers aren’t in competition with the social media because on those cyberspace forums, anything goes and foul four-letter words can be celebrated, something that will not happen in a newspaper where the threat of defamation looms large.
Crucially, on the cyberspace forums, one can conceal his or her identity, giving that person the freedom to persecute the character of this and that person, something that won’t happen in a newspaper.
I have been called names on those forums but I don’t have issues with that because I feel it comes with the profile, the public image, the public job that I do and everyone has a right to pass judgment on me the same way I pass judgment on coaches and players.
I have always argued that when you lose the appeal to be criticised, no matter how severe, you would have lost your influence and become irrelevant because people will not criticise those that are irrelevant.
Social media has made football very exciting and I feel the Dynamos players lost it if they turned their back on their fans on Sunday simply because they felt some had abused them on Facebook.
Come on guys, that’s what fans are for.
Ask me, if you doubt that!
Brilliant, Brilliant Bayern
Bayern Munich — 17 attempts on target, Real Madrid — 13 attempts on target; Bayern Munich — 55% possession, Real Madrid – 45% possession; Bayern Munich – 651 completed passes, Real Madrid 489 completed passes; Bastian Schwensteiger – 101 passes to his teammates. Achtung Madrid!
Come on United!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Chicharitoooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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