I thought my soccer career was over when I handed in West Point's uniform more than two years ago. But last Saturday I joined the Marfokrom Under-17 team to play in a two day tournament in a nearby village. The experience was sensational, and the details are many. Rather than make this into a full length Sports Illustrated story I'll focus on the highlights: football ages, singing and dancing, and match-fixing.This was a travel soccer tournament. But rather than load up the team's minivan-caravan in a hotel parking lot, our team met at the fork in the road that serves as the center of Marfokrom and walked a mile down the road to Otoase, the village hosting the tournament. When we arrived we watched a few of the first matches, as there were three age groups of four teams at the tournament: Under-12, Under-14, and Under-17. Why, as a 21 year old, I was invited to play, was a confusing question initially. Enter football ages.
I'm 21 years old. But my football age is evidently less than 17, as no one seemed to have a problem with me joining the U-17 Marfokrom team for the competition. As I would later learn, every player in Africa has a 'football age' and an actual age. In fact, I was one of the youngest players in the starting 11 at age 21; our forwards were both 25 and our goalie was 28. Thus, the U-17 age bracket serves as the men's league. After seeing the cuts, scrapes, and bruises that I left with (no shinguards in Africa), I'd hate to see what would happen to a kid under the age of 17 who attempted to play in this league legally.
What was more fascinating than the football ages was the pre-game rituals. After suiting up in our Arsenal jerseys, we began to prepare for the match. As a warm-up we simply ran in a circle for about 10 minutes, and then passed a ball between ourselves briefly. But the real excitement came with the singing and dancing that ensued following the stretching. In a very tight circle, with the captain standing in the middle leading us, we clapped, sang, and danced. Though I didn't know most of the songs, I did recognized a few from church. We sang about seeing "Jesus standing on a corner singing Alleluia day by day," and then concluded with what amounted to a remix of the Lord's prayer. The captain then led our team in an actual prayer (a child translated roughly for me), and then we joined hands in rows of two to walk onto the pitch. This type of warm-up definitely trumps the solitude of listening to your iPod alone in a dressing room or hearing a drawn out pep-talk. When it was time for kick off, these guys were loose and ready to go.What I love about soccer/football/futbol is that no matter which continent you play it on, the game trumps any language barrier that might exist. Our coach 'featured' me at center-midfield, a position that relies on communication to direct traffic and through balls through the middle of the pitch. Still, I was able to play confidently and use the simple phrases "ba bra" (come, pass the ball) and "coh bra" (pass and go) to work with the surrounding players. I was pretty rusty, but managed to play well enough that the supporters were pleased with the "obruni's" (white man's) performance. Every header and pass was echoed with the crowd's happy approval and shock at my participation, as an American, in the world's game.
Our team tied the first game 1-1, lost the second 1-0 on a last minute header, and lost the last match 3-1 after we sold it so another team could get 1st place (no kidding). The latter practice is called match-fixing. After our bad luck in the second match, I was psyched to go out and get a win in the third match to finish respectively, with a win, a loss and a draw. My team had different ideas. In the first half of the last match I set up our team's one goal, collecting an assist before sprinting my hardest to catch the goal scorer as he darted to the corner for his celebratory dance with the team. But in the second half I was taken out, and our team gave up three goals in quick succession. Confused, I asked our captain why we broke down; and worse why he did a somersault after the final whistle. "Because we sold the match," came his simple reply.
We sold our final match because win or lose we wouldn't have gotten first place, so we wouldn't have collected any prize money. But by selling the match to the champion, we could collect a small share of the reward and come out with something to show for the weekend's efforts. Fascinating. Morally appalling... but fascinating. It was an amusing ending to a tournament that I will not soon forget.
