PRETORIA — At last, an African team has won a match in this World Cup on the African continent. Ghana went where South Africa, Nigeria and Algeria failed to go, tasting the nectar of a victory in the first round of games played so far, a 1-0 victory over Serbia. It took a penalty kick from Asamoah Gyan six minutes from time to break the dour suffocation of Ghana’s match in Pretoria on Sunday, but if one player in the Loftus Versfeld Stadium deserved to score, it was Gyan.
“This is for all Africa,” he said into a television microphone as he stepped off the field. “God bless everybody, because everybody in Africa is supporting the Black Stars.”
Are they? What is true is that Africa has waited, anxiously and long, for this moment of pride for its continent. But there are real signs that Africans themselves are getting tired of the chaotic organization that takes the World Cup back to the tournament in Mexico in 1986.
The stadiums are not full, despite FIFA exhortations that they are sold out. The fans cannot get through the traffic, even for a game of relatively low interest to South Africans. And only the great tolerance of the people who do get seated avoids what would almost certainly be trouble in South America or Europe.
We should not rain on Africa’s parade. The fans will do that for themselves, as they did during the second half Sunday, constantly making Mexican waves while the clock wound down on such cautious play that it seemed both teams feared defeat more than they desired victory.
This was the eighth game of the 2010 World Cup, and Gyan’s penalty was the ninth goal. At that rate, we are headed for the lowest scoring event since Italy in 1990.
Yet it had started deceptively. Within the first 90 seconds, first Serbia’s Marko Pantelic struck a 40-meter, or 130-foot, shot wide, then Ghana’s Anthony Annan tried an even more audacious volley, from a similar distance. They each, therefore, began like heavyweight boxers trying to land the knockout blow before the opponents knew what had hit them.
Alas, it was a deception. Not only were the shots off target, they were to be the forerunners of such dreadful shooting that only one attempt, by Milan Jovanovic just before halftime, required saving; and that was straight at the goalkeeper.
On and tediously on it crawled. We are told that FIFA has 30,000 hours of film highlights in its archive dating from 1930. This encounter would not add a single second to them.
It was a hotter day than any encountered so far in South Africa during the event. But if that encouraged Ghana, some hefty fouls from the Serbs soon had the opposite effect.
In Africa, an elderly woman had said in Soweto waiting for the opening game on Friday, you have to be patient. We have waited a long, long time for the world to come to us, so if the games are not yet exciting, please wait. It will come.
But sport, mass spectator sport that makes record profit for FIFA if not for Africa, is there to entertain us. This encounter — with every starter on the field bar one, Ghana’s captain, John Mensah, employed by European clubs — pushed waiting to the limits.
Finally, because nothing sooner was decisive, two decisions conspired against Serbia’s depressing attempt to close out this evening as a draw. First, the Argentine referee, Héctor Baldassi, sent off Serbia’s defender Aleksander for his second yellow-card offense — an armlock on Gyan.
Then, after 83 minutes, the referee, once more correct despite Serbia’s bitter complaints, gave a penalty when Zdravko Kuzmanovic clearly handled the ball above head height.
How the miscreants could argue is beyond belief. But given the ball, Gyan showed that calm patience, because he was made to wait fully two minutes before he could take the shot. He allowed goalie Vladimir Stojkovic to make the first move and, with the keeper down on one knee and stretching toward his left, Gyan calmly struck the ball straight down the center of the goal.
The perfect penalty kick was followed in injury time by another Gyan shot that struck the inside of the post. The cue for a true African team celebration, a dance movement more rhythmic than most of the match before it.
One man made no attempt to be part of that joy. Ghana’s coach, Milan Rajevac, is a Serb. He was once a defender, a dour one no doubt, for Red Star Belgrade, but as several of the Africans who pay his salary tried to embrace him, Rajevac fended them off.
Is this what Africa hires European coaches for? To be a passion killer on the day Africa had something to smile about?
“This is for all Africa,” he said into a television microphone as he stepped off the field. “God bless everybody, because everybody in Africa is supporting the Black Stars.”
Are they? What is true is that Africa has waited, anxiously and long, for this moment of pride for its continent. But there are real signs that Africans themselves are getting tired of the chaotic organization that takes the World Cup back to the tournament in Mexico in 1986.
The stadiums are not full, despite FIFA exhortations that they are sold out. The fans cannot get through the traffic, even for a game of relatively low interest to South Africans. And only the great tolerance of the people who do get seated avoids what would almost certainly be trouble in South America or Europe.
We should not rain on Africa’s parade. The fans will do that for themselves, as they did during the second half Sunday, constantly making Mexican waves while the clock wound down on such cautious play that it seemed both teams feared defeat more than they desired victory.
This was the eighth game of the 2010 World Cup, and Gyan’s penalty was the ninth goal. At that rate, we are headed for the lowest scoring event since Italy in 1990.
Yet it had started deceptively. Within the first 90 seconds, first Serbia’s Marko Pantelic struck a 40-meter, or 130-foot, shot wide, then Ghana’s Anthony Annan tried an even more audacious volley, from a similar distance. They each, therefore, began like heavyweight boxers trying to land the knockout blow before the opponents knew what had hit them.
Alas, it was a deception. Not only were the shots off target, they were to be the forerunners of such dreadful shooting that only one attempt, by Milan Jovanovic just before halftime, required saving; and that was straight at the goalkeeper.
On and tediously on it crawled. We are told that FIFA has 30,000 hours of film highlights in its archive dating from 1930. This encounter would not add a single second to them.
It was a hotter day than any encountered so far in South Africa during the event. But if that encouraged Ghana, some hefty fouls from the Serbs soon had the opposite effect.
In Africa, an elderly woman had said in Soweto waiting for the opening game on Friday, you have to be patient. We have waited a long, long time for the world to come to us, so if the games are not yet exciting, please wait. It will come.
But sport, mass spectator sport that makes record profit for FIFA if not for Africa, is there to entertain us. This encounter — with every starter on the field bar one, Ghana’s captain, John Mensah, employed by European clubs — pushed waiting to the limits.
Finally, because nothing sooner was decisive, two decisions conspired against Serbia’s depressing attempt to close out this evening as a draw. First, the Argentine referee, Héctor Baldassi, sent off Serbia’s defender Aleksander for his second yellow-card offense — an armlock on Gyan.
Then, after 83 minutes, the referee, once more correct despite Serbia’s bitter complaints, gave a penalty when Zdravko Kuzmanovic clearly handled the ball above head height.
How the miscreants could argue is beyond belief. But given the ball, Gyan showed that calm patience, because he was made to wait fully two minutes before he could take the shot. He allowed goalie Vladimir Stojkovic to make the first move and, with the keeper down on one knee and stretching toward his left, Gyan calmly struck the ball straight down the center of the goal.
The perfect penalty kick was followed in injury time by another Gyan shot that struck the inside of the post. The cue for a true African team celebration, a dance movement more rhythmic than most of the match before it.
One man made no attempt to be part of that joy. Ghana’s coach, Milan Rajevac, is a Serb. He was once a defender, a dour one no doubt, for Red Star Belgrade, but as several of the Africans who pay his salary tried to embrace him, Rajevac fended them off.
Is this what Africa hires European coaches for? To be a passion killer on the day Africa had something to smile about?
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