Confessions of a football orphan

I know I am not alone on this one, as a man.

I felt a terrible pain last Sunday morning as I watched the replay of the Copa America final as Sanchez scored his penalty kick to give Chile their first Copa Cup in 99 years. Not because I was supporting Argentina. In fact, I was for Chile. But I knew, being a television footer addict, that Sanchez kick was the last I would see of football in four weeks. Think of it as a long football fast. Soccer Ramadhan for the football fanatics.

I mean, it was 9am at a beach hotel, and here I was skipping breakfast (Pilsner si chai) having missed dinner (and the Copa final) live due to being beat the night before – which is why I had badgered the bored barman at this Bamburi Resort to switch to SuperSport.

Soon, the lounge was filled with German, Italian and British men, who although they had come to Kenya for their summer holiday or honeymoon, to get away from it all – including, I presume, football – can no more resist a good game of soccer than a skunk can resist a bad smell. We belong to a common breed, the football mongrel, whom were our skulls bust open, they would find a leather ball lodged between our ears – those guys who live, sleep and dream ‘mpira.’

My own little girl isn’t called Chelsea because I admire the Clinton girl so-ooo much, amigo.

This week was ‘saba saba’ but on ‘sita sita’ ( 6/6/2015), I sat at a casino table in a place called ‘Sky Lounge’. And as the slot sluts did their thing, we watched Juventus lose the Champion’s League final to Barcelona FC (why does Messi mesmerise for club, but mess for country, mystery)?

On the last Wednesday of May, watching the Europa Club final, what we had dubbed ‘War in Warsaw,’ I was desolate if not quite inconsolable after Sevilla beat Dnipro, the brave little Ukrainian team from Dnepropetrovsk ( pronounced ‘Ne-pro-pet-rov-tsk’), the non-home-town of my homie, Alexei Serkov.

Football isn’t war, it is just a sport. But one that is larger than life; and deadlier than death!

If you want to know what it means to be a football addict, it is being alone in a bar on a rainy Thursday midnight watching a football game with teams that sound straight out of the ‘Game of Thrones’ series – Targu Mures, Reindoff Atlasch, Sturm Graz, Istanbul Baksheesh, Ironi Kiryat and Asteros Tripoli (a Greek team, but so bankrupt I suppose they were bought by Libya in a second-hand fire-sale). Take the last Sunday of May, when Chelsea played Sunderland. I was throwing-up ill, but shivering, dragged myself to the local to watch our last game just so I could see Jose lift the EPL trophy for the third time, and say ‘goodbye and good luck’ to our legend Didier Drogba... again, in déjà-vu!

I stayed awake the whole Sunday after waking up at 4am to watch the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight at the start of May, sunrise till sunset, just to see Chelsea win the EPL. And, in three weeks, there is our Community Shield clash against Arsenal to massively look forward to, as we see if the Man U flop we bought called Falcao (‘fala ngombe’) can, once more, punish the genius goalkeeper, Petr Cech, whom we let go to Arsenal – the way his hat-trick beat Cech in a Super Cup against Chelsea a few years ago.

But, three weeks???

Well, there is Wimbledon (which I hope Serena Williams wins), and I will live stream the Fifa Women’s World Cup replays, and play in Karura Forest a football game with the ‘Old Boys’ like Festus Nasri.

Until they spot that the moon really is a football. And bring football fast to an end on Saturday, August 1, 2015.

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