World Cup: Prophets, African Teams and Rolls Royces

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday December 13, 2022 06:00

Any prophet worth his pulpit must have that ‘I see’ moment. Thanks to social media we can pick these ‘I see’ moments through shared clips. Heaven bless the God of technology.

This week I chanced upon one such video. A pastor was predicting the outcome of the World Cup and his ‘seeing’ was a final between Germany and Denmark.

Such is the might of the World Cup that it is capable of creating instant experts and prophets too have bandwaggoned in order to achieve relevance and possibly hoodwink more masses.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with prophets making predictions for matches but some will always be left wondering where it dovetails with Christianity and the Bible. Mark Knopfler once sang ‘they say it is mostly vanity that writes the plays we act’ and for many prophets vanity hugs close. Sadly these teams have both been eliminated from the World Cup after only playing three games. Both Germany and Denmark players are now watching the world cup on TV screens like other children from the discomfort of their homes.

Obviously it cannot be from the comfort of their homes because now their fellow citizens want them to be burnt at the stake for their monumental failures and for failing to validate the man of God. So prophets who predict Denmark versus Germany in the final and the two teams get eliminated in the group stages must go join the rest of the congregation and end their ‘I see’ careers.

Or better still go sit at the ‘false prophets’ corner. We are at the business end of the World Cup and those teams that were merely hanging on and surviving on a large slice of grace without the other necessary ingredients to push farther in the tournament are also back home to inquest, dismissals and mudslinging. Every federation president and country president somehow strangely expects their country to win the World Cup.

You could be little Costa Rica with no football pedigree beyond playing football after putting in an industrial shift in the factories and you will still have to account for your ‘monumental’ failure. African teams are back too. No surprises there. With the patriotic molecules swimming in our blood stream we kept urging these heroes – yeah heroes – forward but we seemed to have been flogging dead horses.

The limit of African teams ambitions needle seem to be stuck at ‘but we almost beat them’. Out of the five teams Africa sends to the World Cup 6 will return after the group games. Most of us were watching those games group games with calculators and computers just trying to work the permutations for African teams to progress. Watching matches with calculators and computers nearby is not known to improve outcomes on the field though but it helps amplify the hopes and maintain sanity levels.

And oh what happened to those amazing, colourful hairstyles that used to come from Africa. Just like the biblical Samson Africa teams seem to have lost their potency and incredible potential with the shedding of the hairstyles. The only country that seems to take football seriously is Saudi Arabia. Wait, they do – reward wise at least.

Think about it. In the 1994 edition of the world Cup a Saudi player called Saeed Al-Owairan scored a wonder goal when they defeated Belgium and he was rewarded with a Rolls Royce. Twenty-eight years later the Saudis defeat Argentina and each player is going to get a Rolls Royce. There’s a pattern emerging here as the Rolls Royce reward circle is continuously expanding.

Possibly in another three decades there will be a Rolls Royce for everyone in the country should the Saudi team amaze the Saudi Princes again with seemingly impossible feats. I am sure African players look at Saudi rewards and say in their hearts ‘nothing doing’ and continue to serve substandard fare on the pitch. Indeed, the World Cup has brought the brilliant-or-rubbish chaos that we men secretly crave.

*Thulaganyo Jankey is a training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email ultimaxtraining@gmail.com.