So a little over a year ago I was in Ghana, in the smallish village of Dambai (google map) and on New Years Day played in a local soccer game against a rival village. First a couple of things to understand:
1. It's hot. About 6 degrees latitude above the equator. I live at 45 degrees above the equator, basically half way to the North Pole. I like it up here in the cold and the dark with clouds and rain and snow and freezing and seasons. Around the equator you get two seasons: hot and wet or hot and dry; I was there during "hot and dry." You quickly learn that it doesn't matter how hot it is, knowing what the temperature is doesn't make you feel any better or worse. The only thing you can do is cease all unnecessary movement, wear as few clothes as possible, and remain in the shade. No breeze, no window fan, no air conditioning, just triple digit big sun beat down from dawn til dusk.
2. I don't speak the language and neither do my two esteemed fair haired teammates/brothers. Yes the locals speak English, but only when trying to communicate with us, and even then, the level of communication is fairly elementary.
3. I have played soccer for a long, long time. At this point it's been more than 20 years of kicking the ball around with my feet and while I confess I'm not going to be usurping Landon Donovan from his starting spot on the US National Team, I would like to think that I've had the benefit of good coaching growing up and an average amount of skill/speed on the pitch.
4. The national footwear of Ghana is flip flops. Cheap, plastic, brightly colored flip flops that you can buy for $2 anywhere in the world. Try going hiking sometime in a pair of cheap flip flops, it's not easy. Now do it every day of your life: your callouses would have callouses.
OK, on to the story.
The village for which I played was small enough that the 11 players consisted of me, brother Joe, brother Adam, and 8 local guys ages 15 to 30. No subs. Wait a minute, we don't have subs? It's over 100 degrees out here and whenever you plant your foot a small mushroom cloud of red dust billows up from the field. Well, unless you stepped on one of the rocks that is sharp and pebble to baseball sized, going to want to watch out for those. But I get ahead of myself.
Pre-Game Festivities
The under card for this battle consisted of the women of the village versus the younger boys who were not yet old enough to play on the men's team. So boys ages 7-14 against their older sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmas, etc. You have to understand something about a healthy woman in Ghana. She does not look like Naomi Campbell, she looks like more like a linebacker for the Bears, but with a better weave. These women have been toughened up by the trials of living in a poor village year after year. I have not seen a game of soccer played nearly so violently as this pre-game girls vs. boys match. Holy smokes. Your 10 year old son is dribbling towards your goal? Clean him out, he'll stop crying eventually. I wish I had video of some of these skilled little boys trying to dribble, pass and shoot while being chased by women laughing hilariously. Huge hits, extreme carnage, it was awesome.
My team had to break away for the action so we could change into our uniforms, which likely had been donated by some one's nephew's middle school team in 1986, and plan our strategy. The Cornell Men's Soccer Team had donated a set of socks for everyone, so at least we were working with something from this century. Apparently positions are more of a relative term described by a number (1 through 11) rather than forward, midfield, back, center, etc so I was assigned some sort of number and told to go forth and conquer.
The Game
Aside from the dust and rocks, the field seemed in good shape: some semblance of square, newly dug lines and a brand new cross bar! The lines aren't marked in chalk like here at home, they dig small trenches in the dirt where the lines are supposed to be so if you are battling it out near the sideline, odds of you snapping an ankle in the trench are pretty decent. The goal is just a couple of upright posts with a fresh piece of bamboo or something similar laid across to serve as a crossbar. Apparently you have to replace the crossbar frequently as the drying out wood will sag quite a bit.
So we are in the pregame huddle and I'm looking down at the feet of my teammates and sure enough, my goalie (who turned out to be pretty damn good) has 6 toes on one foot, so he plays barefoot. Having that sixth toe must give him incredible stability, who knew!? Most of the other guys on the team had beat up looking cleats that were well worn from hundreds of games that were played long before they were inherited by their current owner.
The game, while extremely hot and exhausting, was incredible amounts of fun. You have no idea how NERVOUS I was before the game started. I had played in playoff games in High School that seemed important at the time and had played with strangers plenty of times before, but for some reason this game, in the middle of nowhere, was serious. I hadn't had that many butterflies in my stomach since the last time I jumped out of a plane. It was a pretty even match with poor officiating (some things are universal no matter where you play) but by far the best part was the expressions of frustration by some players. If a kick was missed, the player would throw up his hands and then there, right in the middle of the field, would remove his cleats, then his socks, and promptly rejoin the fray. These guys played every day in bare feet or flip flops. The prestige of wearing cleats in a real match wore off quickly and by the end of the game, a good half dozen guys were just running around in bare feet.
Needless to say I pounded down a lot of water before the game, at halftime, and then again after the game. At the conclusion of the match everyone got together for a group picture and then, in true men's league fashion, we had a refreshing alcoholic beverage. Normally a cold beer after a game is a fantastic idea. The only problem was that we were offered apatache: essentially a warm liquor distilled from rusty nails that burns with an unholy fire all the way down the throat and fore several hours afterwards. It was tough putting that down for sure, but all in all, a very successful match.
I included some action shots of the game, the group picture afterwards, and one of my quite disgusting feet after I extricated them from my shoes.
