The Time for Africa to Shine has Arrived

Today, Ghana football team--the Black Stars marked the first win by an African nation in Fifa world cup 2010. They dominated their European counterparts Serbia ranked 15th in the world through their flowing, sexy-- truly African style of football which reaffirms football's status as the "beautiful game". This win hopefully would end the nervousness being felt by the African nations to achieve something spectacular on their home soil. Two days back Bafana Bafana or "The Boys" almost secured a win against Mexico which ended up being 1-1 draw. But, still lifted the pressure on the South African team as they ended up their 11 match loosing streak. Hopefully, the host nation's spirits would be lifted by this decent result against an opposition ranked 17th in the world and would emerge out of their group into the knock-out phase.

Vuvuzelas-the plastic air trumpets are creating an electrifying atmosphere inside the stadiums. Though, my French counterparts would disagree as their team complained about the inability of players to communicate due to the noise created by the Vuvuzelas. In my opinion this French team has been instructed not to communicate on or off the pitch, evident from their consistently forgettable performances over the past 4 years, under the guidance of their great clown-cum-coach Mr. Domenech -looked down by both their media and the fans. The reality is that this is the worst team sent by a great footballing nation over the past 30 years who doesn't deserves to be in the world-cup (You know who instead deserves to be competing here). Thierry Henry's hand-ball against Ireland was as disgraceful as Maradona's so called hand-of-god which has deteriorated the image of one of the most iconic soccer players.

Ivory Coast-The Elephants which is described as the best African team after Roger Milla led Cameroon of 1990 is under great pressure to become the first African team to reach the semi-finals of the world cup. In Didier Drogba they possess arguably the best striker in the world who destroyed the opposition defenses throughout the season and amassed a goal-tally of 37 in 2009-10 for his club Chelsea F.C. In Toure brothers-Kolo and Yaya along with Eboue, Kone, Kalou, Dindane and Zokora they have a solid European based flavor in their team which is highly experienced and possess the ability to beat any European or Latin footballing powerhouse on their day. But, the pressure created by the media, sacking of their coach 6 months prior to the start of the soccer fest and an unlucky draw of being in the "group of death" has increased the doubts over achieving greatness at their home continent. Another fatal blow was the elbow injury suffered by their captain charisma Didier Dorgba 2 weeks prior to their opening match against Cristiano "Superman" Ronaldo's Portugal. Drogba back on the pitch could be a timely boost to the spirit of The Elephants and the whole African sub-continent.

Not much is being expected out of Nigeria and Algeria, both of them have already lost their opening matches. But still "Africa is indeed happy" to welcome the biggest tournament in the world of sports entertainment and hopefully one of the African teams would be able to give joy and make the people of this football-savvy continent proud by being one of the teams to compete for the most coveted trophy on July 10th inside the "Soccer City" which resembles a calabash, an African gourd used as a cooking pot, truly resembling the roots of oldest civilization of mankind.