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 around 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 later 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.
Did 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.
Mwamburi Mwang’ombe is a literature major.
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