Watching Uruguay Lose

By: Elizabeth Ohene

Accra, July 9, 2010 - We don't really know very much about Uruguay here in Ghana. Or to put it correctly, we know nothing about Uruguay. We know it is a South American country and until the match with the Black Stars last Friday, I suspect there wouldn't have been many Ghanaians who could tell you the name of the capital city of Uruguay. Montevideo still doesn't ring many bells here. We still don't know who their President is, nor do we know what their main export is; but every child on the street of Accra now knows who Suarez is and Forlain and we can pick out the face of their Coach if he was in a line-up of ten men.

There is one thing we all know. We do not like the Uruguayans and we do not like Uruguay. They were responsible for the Black Stars crashing out of the FIFA World Cup and they broke the hearts of a whole continent.

What is more, we are convinced it was not fair. We believe it wouldn't have been so painful if we had been beaten fair and square. Indeed, Kofi Annan, one of the few universally accepted African/Ghanaian men of repute has said that the Black Stars were the moral victors. But then ask any child in Kinshasa or Kumasi or Nairobi or Soweto and they would have preferred to see the Black Stars in the semi final than have them thrown out at the quarter finals as the moral victors.

It did not help matters that Suarez appeared to be gloating over his handball cheating incident. How dare he claim it to be the hand of God. Did he not know that we had exclusive rights to the Almighty?

And so we watched the semi-final match between the Netherlands and Uruguay in a state of suspended anxiety.

We know the Dutch. We have known them for a long time. Lots of people on the African continent still remember Ruud Gullit the famous Dutch international footballer and the fact that at the time when it wasn't fashionable to do so, he went public with his support for the still imprisoned Nelson Mandela.

Netherlands is a popular destination for Ghanaians in the diaspora. Five years ago, there were celebrations to mark 300 years of relations between the Netherlands and Ghana. Their Crown Prince who was at the match in Cape Town came to Ghana with his new Bride for the celebrations and the Netherlands are very active in the diplomatic community here in Ghana. They are interested in water and sanitation.

In other words, we do not require any excuse to like the Dutch. But in Cape Town on Tuesday night, we did not just want them to win, we wanted them to WALLOP the Uruguayans!

Every time the cameras showed Suarez on the bench, where he was spending his suspension time for the Ghana game incident, tens of millions of pairs of bad eyes and venom were trained on him. Every time the Dutch won the ball or a foul was awarded against the Uruguayans we cheered.

We saw the Uruguayans as upstarts; they shouldn't have been there in Cape Town in the first place. The Black Stars should have been there, Ghana should have been there, Africa should have been there and if there was any justice in this world, Uruguay should be beaten.

For the first time since that painful wintry night in Soccer City in Soweto last Friday, the sound of vuvuzelas could be heard in Accra. The first sounds came with that absolutely cracking goal scored by the Dutch Captain. Suddenly the city came back to life. These Uruguayans were going to be thrashed. Even when Uruguay equalized, nobody panicked; we just knew they would be punished for having cheated us.

As one of my young friends watching the game in Accra put it, at that stage the gods of Africa intervened. The ghosts of Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki, Kwame Nkrumah, Julius Nyerere, Oliver Tambo, Okomfo Anokye, and all the departed elders who look after us on this continent donned Dutch jerseys and joined the match.

The Uruguayans couldn't win. And they lost. We are glad they lost and even though it has not taken the pain of losing away, it has at least helped to start the healing process. It felt good, oh so good to watch Uruguay lose.

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