Recently when I saw Nigeria succumb to the thrashing of Greece, I was not shocked at all or not even disappointed in anyway. This is not because I am not a fan of Nigeria or any other African team at the FIFA 2010 world cup. No. In fact if there is any buffoon that is a die hard fan of the African teams at this year’s world cup, then it is I Zak, the son of a Munyoro peasant.
However, one of the reasons why I was not shocked or even disappointed when those Nigerian fellows were beaten for the second time in this year’s world cup, it was just because I am a citizen of a country which last qualified for the African cup of Nations in 1978, 10 years before my flesh and bones were delivered into this world and for the case of world cup not even a single time in the history of this world. Yet every other time our country Uganda participates in these qualification campaigns for World Cup and Africa cup of Nations, but has always failed to qualify just because it loses matches here and there.
So, I have seen Uganda lose over and again while it failed to qualify for such ultimate competitions. True, at first I would get disappointed and shocked when Uganda lost, not until I got used to the losses.
Now, I am so used to losses in football that even if I rallied behind teams like Nigeria in the world cup and all that they did was lose during the competition, I swear I would never be shocked or lose my wits over such stuff of losing that I have seen Uganda do and do quite well.
Moreover some of these teams more so that Nigerian team has started behaving like the way Uganda behaves during the qualification campaigns. I have begun to suspect that these Nigerian fellows must be copying some of the tricks that Uganda uses to ensure that it does not qualify for these prime competitions.
I suspect that must be the reason why the other day Nigeria gave away a 1-0 advantage to those Greek fellows who took advantage and won the match. I hope you all remember that time when Uganda gave away an advantage of similar style some time back to a country called Niger which also went ahead to win the game against Uganda in a qualification campaign.
Then Uganda went ahead to turn its faith and put it in mathematics to qualify for the African Cup of Nations. No wonder mathematics betrayed Uganda even when Uganda won its last match during that qualification campaign. Now after giving away a game to the Greek national football team, Nigeria decided to put its faith in mathematics and hoped that it wins its game against South Korea to have any chance of qualifying for the next round of the World cup. Surely that is copying Uganda’s tricks.
Keep following Zak as he delves into different issues, events and ideas concerning Ugandans with his youthful satire.
zak@weinformers.net
