Soccer Fan Blog

Our habitual commentator vedder has reason great on having criticized us that we have not published yet anything on this sour news that it has moved to the world of the soccer, so I will try to assemble in this post all the information that we have been receiving during these days.

Two days ago, the Selection of Togo was coming in bus to Cabinda, region of the north of Angola, which will be one of the head offices of the Cup Africa that is on the point of beginning (specifically of the Group B: Togo, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Burkina Faso). To a few kilometers of the border, the vehicle was riddled by a terrorist group although it was escorted by two cars of the police. In the attack the driver of the bus was murdered and persons turned out to be hurt nueves. Two of them, the trainer assistant of the selection of Togo, Abalo Amelete, and the chief of press of the national team, Stan Ocloo, have died last dawn as a consequence of the tough injuries.
The attack has been claimed by the FLEC (Front of Liberation of Cabinda) and they have wanted to clarify to us that there are no “terrorist group”, but a “resistant group” (sic) and what they try the fact is that Angola recognizes his independence. And since we can find the human stupidity both in Cabinda, and in Spain or the USA, it happened to them that the best thing was to kill a few togoleses that not at all have to do with his political conflict.

The informations on this matter have been very confused. The forward of the selection togolesa Jonathan Aiyite made sure in a contact with the press that his partner Kodjovi Obilale, doorman of the team, also had died because of the shots, but finally the Government togolés has announced that the guardamallas is out of danger and it has already left the UCI.

But the confusion or polemic, I do not know very well how to qualify it, came with the declarations crossing between any members of the delegation togolesa and his Government. The midfielder Alaixys Romao, player of the French Grenoble was affirming yesterday to the newspaper ‘L’Equipe‘ that the totality of the members of the selection they have agreed to remain in Angola to dispute this Monday his first party against Ghana.

The set of the delegation we have met and have agreed to be in the field on Monday to play against Ghana. The decision has been unanimous. Some partners have died and others have turned out to be hurt for coming to the Cup of Africa. They cannot be disappointed and flee like cowards. We will remain here for them, but also not to give them the satisfaction of fleeing to the rebels. Our Government does not seem that it agrees with us, but we all have decided that we are going to dispute this competition.

In the same direction, Thomas Dossevi, of the Nantes, affirmed that the players had decided to remain:

We have the broken heart, this is not a holiday, but we want to defend our colors and our values and we are men. It is a decision taken unanimously the team, which met in the night after having being calmed by the authorities angoleñas.

Nevertheless, practically at the same time, the captain of the selection, Emmanuel Adebayor, of the English club Manchester City, affirmed in his web that it was returning to England. And the fact is that finally, the delegation togolesa has been forced to leave Angola by order of his Prime minister, Gilbert Houngbo, end confirmed by the Spokesman of the Government, Pascal Bodjona:

We cannot continue in the Cup of Africa with a few so dramatic circumstances.

So, finally, the Selection of Togo will not meet in the continental championship, but the messages and declarations on this matter keep on coming to us to dropper. There are players, like proper Adebayor, who wanted to make clear that his will was to play and that only leave Angola because the governmental order was clear and forceful. Other members of the team have declared that they will try to boycott the championship.

Anyway, the terrorist madness has struck the world of the ball while we all, included we in NdF, continue with our soccer, practically as if nothing should happen. And the fact is that, if we are sincere, it is necessary to admit that another rooster would sing if the happened happens to France, for example; yes, it is true that the same is not a displacement in bus for Africa that to travel in plane like the Europeans, but good … the stir had been different.

On the topic of which the Selection togolesa should do the expedition in bus, having to cover more than two thousand kilometers, crossing several countries, it is necessary to say that, even talking each other of a selection of a rather poor country, it seems a little incomprehensible. Sure that the Prime minister does not take very much the bus … The Government of Angola has assured that the Cup Africa will celebrate and that, although the accident control measures were already enough (sic), now will redouble his efforts. Also, the South African persons in charge for the World 2010 have hurried to remember that South Africa is a country much more developed than Angola …

Personally I believe that the facts are serious and they must wake up worry in the people of the soccer, but it is necessary to support the calmness and to not to begin speculating on the safety of the Cup Africa or of the World 2010 of South Africa. Let’s forget, for example, neither the great thing that bothered us the insinuations of prince Alberto de Mónaco on the safety as regards ETA during the examination to the candidacy of Madrid 2012, nor what happened in London a few days later. We must not give the back to the African soccer in the most important moment of his history, when he prepares himself to organize a World cup of soccer that comes to give one more step in the way that Nelson Mandela began with the World cup of Rugby in 1995.