**Fever Pitch: Ghana on the brink of making World Cup history and other tales

 Source: Daily Guide newpaper

For football fan-atics like myself, the World Cup is panning out to be deliciously interesting. All expected outcomes are not coming to pass and there have been surprises abundant. The drama is never-ending and its even reaching soap opera-esque dimensions. 

Here are some delightful headlines:

*English goal keeper Robert Green and the ball that got away

*Nigerian midfielder gets over 1,000 death threats over his sending off 

*France's World Cup fiasco - The Curse of the Irish perhaps?

*The Curse of the Nike Advert?: All footballers featured never made it past the World Cup quarter finals

*A strangely disallowed American goal 

 

*A strangely disallowed English goal

*An off-side Argentinian and a strangely allowed goal 

*The media-hyped tale of Two (Boateng) brothers  and their over-hyped epic encounter on opposing sides on the pitch 

Not only is it drama-filled but it is (supposedly) our time...Africa's world cup. The fact that the Black Stars remain the only African team in the actual competition may make it hard to believe that it is indeed the time for the continent. Currently, our Stars have the incredible burden of the whole of Africa on their shoulders. It has been an absolute delight getting emails and  text messages from friends all over the continent and the world declaring their support for the Black Stars. I just heard that Kenyans are flying Ghana colours and it appears South Africans are affectionately referring to the Black Stars as "BaGhana" - a witty take on  their not-so successful football team "Bafana Bafana". Of course in the case of South Africa, we have to contend with the fact that as soon as we lose Ghanaians will probably be back to being not-so affectionately referred to as "Makwerekwere" (derogatory SeSotho/SeTswana term  used to refer to Black African foreigners in South Africa).

Back to the Ghana-Uruguay encounter slated for tonight. Is there hope? Could Ghana be trailblazer in Africa yet again? Is it really "Our time" ?

BBC Focus on Africa magazine July - September 2010 edition

**Fever Pitch: Okay so I borrowed the phrase from Nick Hornby 1992 novel  of the same title which apparently is an autobiographical account of his lifelong love / obsession with (my beloved) Arsenal football club (The Gunners!). Fever Pitch was later made into a movie starring Colin Firth in an unforgettable lead.