MARRY THOSE WHO KNOW THE GAME
In her “DATE A MAN MARRIED TO FOOTBALL? NOT ME!”
which is done in relatively good prose but frail argument,
Njoki Chege complains about a host of things about the
game of football and relationships. She advises ladies thus:
“If your man, my dear girls, screams and claps when the
likes of Sanchez step into the field, then that man is a
closeted homosexual. How else can you explain a man
shrieking in glee at the sight of another man? So, stop being
disagreeable because your favourite player — who is also
your secret crush — has failed the entire team.” I mean the
Njoki who is always running into people’s relationships and
nerves because she has never understood the offside rule in
football? She does not know football is probably more
creative than drama which her coach offers as an alternative
by her coach in secondary school.
You have heard, for you definitely cannot know, those who
have spared their virginity to the outermost rim of life only
to surrender it to the ‘wrong’ persons. Those of us who have
lost our virginity most recently are like the team which
concedes a late goal. It is the most painful. We are the types
who go around blaming everyone of the opposite gender
thinking that: “all (wo)men are the same”. The late goal
awakens us to the mistakes that are mostly made at latter
and ripe stages of life. As such, we should forever be keen
because the final tide may become the figurative straw that
broke the camel’s back.
On the other side are those knocked-out the Tyson style.
Those who pave way very early in life because they believe it
is needless to waste energy shielding what you will
eventually give. Hush! These is not about virginity or lack of
it thereof, it is about life and death. Na hata kama ni about
virginity and sex kwani “tudu nikii?”The Late Bruno Metsu
would always tell Senegalese football players in their world
cup matches that “every match is a match of your life”.
Football, like any other sport is the sure mimicry of life… it
presents lessons which are applied daily in life.
Njoki, football is not a silly game where 22 men kick and run
after an inflated piece of pigskin. Every panting, sweating
and scoring is the jaw-dropping battle of life outside here. It
is an intellectual battle which is a precipitated statement of
patriotic, economic and ideological conquering of the
strategic and privileged. It is a spherical body in the shape
of the world, on a flat play ground representing the equal
chances that life gives us until we mess up. However, there
will be issues beyond our ability and comprehension. They
are the referee who plays God and makes the ultimate
decisions of and over our lives. Once he decides it is a
penalty there is nothing we can do. The 90-minute time limit
teaches us of our frontiers in life and the time within which
we have to conclude our business on this side of the
universe. Then, there are spectators who ‘know’ more than
the players and the coach. These are people who are experts
of everything including nothing. They are ‘experts’ who
advise you about everything in your life. They are outsiders
who “mourn louder than the owners of the corpse.” Achebe.
In life, the very ambitious always find their behind eaten.
This makes more sense to those who have played against
teams like Barcelona which penetrates anything that is
agape. It is for the simple reason in football that you cannot
attack and defend at the same time. If you go for goals, you
leave your defence prone to counter-attacks. The very
serious in life do not follow the madness that football is thus
eventually lack the tactics of this game of life. For this
reason, lovers have had to come home to cheating spouses
because they were busy attacking opportunities.
Whenever Jose Mourinho plays against Barca, he plays
defensive, his players run least and they spare their energy
for a strategic pounce on the formidable enemy. We must
always know when to attack in life for the rules in the
football pitch teach us all. To Chelsea, it is not the flowery,
decorated and classy presentation that matters but strategy
to get the trophy. There comes a time when clinching the
trophy is all that matters. You know what a man who wants
a lady does. It happened to Njoki when her boyfriend who”
was all about football… and clapping very hard and
screaming like a woman in labour when Manchester United
scored a goal…” came seducing you. It may be the reason
some go for those spouses who may not be as beautiful/
handsome but are result oriented when it comes to marriage.
We do not need models to take to coffee dates and orgasmic
orgies at lap-dancing clubs when it comes to marriage. Such
women have been stress to men who have fought to snatch
their babes from more blessed revellers
However, there are those who can manage beautiful and
productive football like Team Barcelona. Arsenal has tried to
imitate them but they never get the results because life
cannot be an exact duplicate. In addition, these games
present solemn social spheres of life. Whenever Barca plays
Real Madrid, the secessionist narrative of groups like Al-
Shabaab, Boko Haram and ISIS are brought to the fore.
Barcelona comes from Catalonia which is pushing for self-
determination from the main Spain. Every match with teams
outside Catalonia is broader than just football. The political
aspirations, fears and hopes of its people are embodied in
every strain or turn that the magical Messi makes for them.
The other thing that we see in football especially by the
whites is an assertion of their superiority to the black race.
Unlike our Kenyan teams where players carelessly hit against
each other as they injure and aimlessly run in the pitch,
Europesan football is a show of class, wit and strategy.
Watch them play and see the ball running constantly as the
players move calculatively move around with ease. Let the
ball roll, labour less and play best. What of the 400 million
US dollar ‘fight of the century’? What lessons are in and
outside the ring? It is not just how the whites can hype what
is theirs to suck all the money in the world but also the
politics of “you cannot win a major war on American soil”
from outside. Do you know that Manny Pacquiao represented
the poor masses of the rest of the world who feel oppressed,
robbed and abused by Mayweather of the rich system?
Ever known what Muhammad Ali’s philosophy of “float like a
butterfly and sting like a bee” has done to all facets of
human life? I have just stung you like a bee only to marvel
at the beautiful floating butterfly should you be lucky to see
me.
If you do not change tactic, football will forever get a men’s
hundred per cents in everything. If you study football and be
counseled of it, you will conquer him and stop whining on
magazeti ya kufungia nyama. By the way, how do patrons of
the pen like Philip Ochieng’, David Ndii, Roy Gachuhi et al
write on the same day and paper with Njoki Chege? Doesn’t
she suffocate from their resultant linguistic and logical
aroma? Is she capable of abstract thought needed to sustain
a column? It may be the all the City Girl does is to
hallucinate on paper.
Life is a game, you can take these lessons to bed and see
the results.
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