Pub-talk: A bizarre soccer week mars Commonwealth debut spirit

There’s a story, true or false withstanding, about one of several Taifa Stars coaches in the 1990s. It is about a dramatic incident in which the coach tantalized Tanzania’s press with carefully chosen English terms, a language he knew would attract few questions during the press conference. Therefore downplaying the controversy raised by the issue of dismal results after a series of friendly matches played by the team on a special and rare visit to Brazil. Witnesses to the press briefing, which was dubbed as ‘the exclusive English interview’ organized to coincide with his team’s arrival at Dar International Airport was even rarer in the comedy that is Tanzania’s football. The friendlies themselves had been organized as a step forward in the country’s timeless-and ongoing unsuccessful attempts to- develop the standards of the game in East Africa’s largest and most populous country. At the time, the trip to Brazil (the equivalent in Soccer as Mecca is to Islam) was organized following another in the series that is the disastrous performance of Taifa Stars-going by the extremely high expectations of the average Tanzanians which have now stabilized at mocking the team and laughing it off as a comedy series. In this era, the tour gave the Stars an opportunity to participate in, and lose in all the friendly matches between them and their Brazilian hosts. In the circumstances, the Taifa Stars lost in huge margins that upon their arrival at Dar International airport, an explanation was demanded of the coach in a press briefing. The national coach was asked why his team had lost in all the matches and whether the team had learnt anything at all in their training camp. Asked in Swahili about the dismal performance of the team and knowing fully well that just a handful of journalists present at the press conference would ask many other questions in English, he excited the crowd when he decided to address the journalists in English. The event is also said to be his first interview exclusively in English, an uncommon language in football circles at the time. It is further said that at the end of the interview journalists present were left in wonder and amazement. Apparently, the team had more than undertaken soccer training; they had also learnt language skills. Shooting two birds with one stone!! You may ask where the resident of the Hammock is going with this mambo jumbo about soccer, especially Tanzanian soccer, when the newspaper has enough pages and columnists dedicated to sport/soccer. Well, there’s the issue of the ‘hand of God 2009’ Version featuring Thiery Henry that made it hard during the week to think of anything else of national importance to discuss at the local pub. Note. In this pub, known as the Ship and Anchor, soccer has provided some hilarious moments for its patrons over the times. And as such the game is a very serious affair to which women of wisdom-no women of any calibre-are invited in equal numbers as men. There was one such moment last year when French national football coach Raymond Domenech was asked a simple question in a live interview about his team and the nature of tactics it had used to fail so embarrassingly at Euro 2008. Domenech responded to the question by proposing to his girlfriend (a journalist herself) in a press conference broadcast on all major news networks and media houses. Now put this into perspective, a press conference involving France’s national soccer team is an important national issue. Sometimes even the president of the country is watching the thing. In the spirit of celebrating Rwanda’s entry in the Commonwealth as well as announcement by all the five presidents to launch the full EAC Customs Union on 1 July 2010, (just days before the World Cup final in South Africa in 2010) I’ll save you the details about statistics and all, that was way after the pub closed. “We are in the Commonwealth today, from now, we are going to adopt English as the language of drinking in this pub.” One patron announced after his third beer and staring at the barman as only a man that has drunk three Mutzig bottles plus eating two zingaro brochete can stare.This pub is a serious one, it is important to be discussing national matters. In fact so important and heated was the discussion on Friday that it was agreed unanimously on many issues surrounding Rwanda’s commonwealth debut. The members again agreed that in order to further the country’s English competence, “We are also signing up seriously with the East African Community. We shall get rid of the Franc one day and if change does not come, we will seriously consider taking on Swahili as the first business language. And as if that is not enough, we will abolish the Rwandan passport and adopt an East African one.” We intend one day to become like the EU, in fact we shall have our own serious version of the UEFA Champions’ league. Have you not heard of our preparations for this year’s CECAFA Senior Challenge Cup?” donuwagiwabo@gmail.com