My two pence on the World Cup

 17/06/10

I feel it is right for me to give some views about the world cup:

The Jabulani:

A lot has been said about the ball; Goal keepers maintain that it is hard to make a grip on the ball, that it is almost impossible to predict its flight path, others have aired their concerns that the ball is able to regain momentum and head towards the net even after successfully “catching” it and setting it for a goal kick. Strikers are not left out on this;

ask them and you will be told that it very hard to hit a target with this ball. You just can’t tell the appropriate force to apply for a shot to be on target. You aim the near post and it heads to the other one. You pass it to a team mate and it finds its way to the opponent even if it means changing its course by an acute angle. It is a strange ball! . When a corner kick is played, it clearly goes out of field of play only to curl back to the field where the opponents are crowded.

I nearly bought these stories especially after Rob Green, Faouzi Chaouchi (sp) and Enyeama (sp) spilled some feeble shots into their own nets but this is no more after a chat I had with my Friend Mkubwa. He reminded me of the balls played in the villages that are oversize, patched up and almost oval in shape. Despite this, goals are still scored and neither the goalkeepers nor the players do their clubs a disservice. He also reminded me of the rugby, imagine converting tries (sp) with that “ball” .

Whistles: 

I have seen players plead with the referee, after being booked for kicking the ball after a whistle has gone, claiming that they couldn’t have heard the whistle with the blaring Vuvuzelas. Remedy: Replace the whistle with a Vuvuzela bigger than all the other so that when the referee blows it everybody including Robin Van Persie hears it.