Lebron had to leave Cleveland!

He couldn’t save the town.

He couldn’t save the Cavaliers.

Lebron came out of high school at the age of 18 and was thrust into the role of a Messiah without his choosing. The town of Cleveland needed (and still needs) sports salvation and this herculean task was placed squarely on his young shoulders. For seven long years, he toiled at this task. He delivered over and over, each night, each season. The town woke up. Quicken Arena was sold out every night he played. Business around the arena boomed. Life was good.

However every now and then, you caught glimpses of the weight of the load. Most apparent – the NBA playoffs! Surrounded by players who could not up their game, the load seemed to get suddenly heavier. And he would buckle. Buckle under the load of expectation. He kept this up day after day, each season, seven years long.

Was he up to the task? Sure! Could he have saved Cleveland? I think he could have if he had been given a good supporting cast. Without this cast, he ultimately tired out. Basketball became a job. I think he said it best when he talked about his decision to go to the Heat: “We don’t have the pressure of going out and scoring 30 every night or shooting a high percentage.” It does not mean he cannot shoot 30 each night. It means when he does it, it will be fun. It won’t be the only way out.

So what is a tired Savior to do? Quoting him, “You have to do what’s best for you, and what’s going to make you happy.” Since the Cavaliers had no cap space and were in no position to get him the help he needed, he had to go elsewhere. He had to do it for his sanity, his game and his future. He had to go elsewhere. This time around, he had to go to a team with a good, no, great supporting cast.

That’s why Lebron had to leave.

Was he loyal? Heck yeah he was! Seven years is a very long time in the career of any athlete.

Did he choke under pressure? No, no, no! He gave his all but we expected more than his all. We expected him to embody the all of the whole team. The “all” of 5 men. We expected him to be superhuman!

Did he go about it the right way? No! The whole circus surrounding his decision tarnished his image and took away from what he accomplished in Cleveland. Promotion of his brand took precedence over protocol. He came off as disrespectful to the teams that trekked to recruit him and his former boss, Dan Gilbert. Maybe he should have had the courtesy to inform his former boss personally of his decision instead of making one of his “boys” do it. Maybe he should not have burnt his bridges.

Chalk it up to youth and lack of wisdom an let’s move on for I can’t wait to see what the next chapter holds.

World Cup 2010 -  besides almost causing me to go into cardiac arrest when Ghana lost ignominiously to Uruguay, has also rejuvenated my love for soccer. (In the last few years, I started a love affair with NFL football which lead me to desert my first love.)

It has also exposed soccer for what it is and what it’s not.

Soccer = a great game hampered by bad rules, terrible referees with too much power and total lack of sportsmanship.

In the dying seconds of the quarterfinals game between Ghana and Uruguay, Luis Suarez punched out a header from Dominic Adiyiah that would have sent Ghana to the semifinals. The only problem was Suarez is not the goalkeeper so under FIFA rules, he got ejected and Ghana earned a penalty kick. Ghana’s striker Asamoah Gyan missed the shot and the rest, as they say is history.

The outcry in the international media after the game has been totally anti-Suarez and he has been labeled a cheat and unsportsmanlike. Loudest have been Africans, the English and surprisingly, the Americans.

It is understandable why Africans should be pissed. Ghana had become the team of the continent. The English have never forgotten Maradonna’s “Hand of God.” The US media though surprised me. After all Ghana knocked out the US in 2006 and this year. In the 2006 competition, Ghana was the benefactor of (what most Americans feel) a dubious referee call. So why were Americans so aghast?

Well, before we get to that, let’s get some background.

The US is the only nation in the world not totally enamored with soccer. Reasons are as myriad as the pace of the game and the paucity of goals. Now baseball is no faster so the pace is no argument. Two other reasons that I heard over and over  before the World Cup started and that got louder during the games were the facts that the referee wielded too much power and that the rules were at times arbitrarily and ambiguous.

Look at American sports. They are guided by hard and fast rules. There are of course situations where subjectivity plays a role – pass interference calls in the NFL and the strike zone in baseball are two examples that come to mind. But in the majority of cases, the rules are not arbitrarily and ambiguous. They favor sportsmanship because the rules don’t have too much of leeway to game and play the system. The referees don’t wield the amount of power those in soccer have. Their impact on games, although important, is not as game-changing as in soccer. Since goals are so few in soccer, teams may not be able to overcome one bad call.

Compare this situation in American sports to rules and referees in soccer. The soccer referee is literally an autocrat. His word is law and his decisions one-sided and grave. They make and break. That together with rules that are ambiguous and somewhat arbitrarily lead to players behaving in unsportsmanlike ways to gain an edge. Hence the “Hands of God, Henri and Suarez.” Hence the flopping.

So again, why were Americans aghast? Well the accusations of referee power and ambiguity were borne out during the games over and over – the American goal against Slovakia that was disallowed for no reason, the English goal against Germany that wasn’t given and the myriad suspect calls.The lack of sportsmanship in how players flopped, players hit other players when no one was looking, the blatant use of hands and so on.

That is why I think the rules of the game need some tweaking.

Ironically, FIFA can look at the one nation where soccer is not the number one sport for support, if it is willing to take the game to the next level. And that is the US!

Some of these needed changes are already practiced in American sports and that is why the US may be such a good example.

The use of goal-line technology is direly needed. It is expensive it can be reserved for international games and for those organizations and countries who can afford it. The setup would capture events at the goal and the video transported real time to a reviewer somewhere in the stadium who can communicate with the referee on the field. in the case of the English goal, the reviewer would have sent a message to the referee through his earpiece – “That was a goal!”

The concept of goal-tending should be introduced. It is a rule in basketball. If an opposing player other than the goalkeeper uses the hand or hands to prevent a kick or header that would have been a goal otherwise, that should be a termed goal-tending. The scoring team should be given the goal and the offending player sent off for good measure.

The game clock. Now this is one complaint I often heard. It really exposes the arbitrariness of the rules. The time of play should be set in stone not at the whim of the referee.

Tougher punishment for the use of hands by players. Everyone saw Henry use his hands twice in that fateful World Cup qualifier against Ireland. The rule should be – if a player who is not a goalkeeper uses the hands in a play that results in a goal, the scoring team will forfeit the goal and the offending player will be sent off. If the play that not result in a goal, the player will be sent off if the use of hands was intentional. Coaches in the NFL are able to throw in a red flag to challenge a call. Maybe this ability should be given in soccer in cases of blatant use of the hand or hands. Thierry Henry should never have gotten away with that handball and neither should have Maradonna.

Soccer is a great game with great athletes in great shape. Their skill level is mighty high and the game is a pleasure to watch. For the sake of all who love to play and watch the game, let’s take soccer to the next level. Let’s stop bad referees form influencing how games turn out. Let’s stop the Maradonnas, Henrys and Suarezes!

The last part Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen is titled Götterdämmerung. In it, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, a rather voluptuous lady, sings her aria to end the opera.

Hence the saying “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings”.

The German word Götterdämmerung is a translation of Ragnarök (old Norse), which in Scandinavian mythology refers to the destruction of the gods in a battle with evil, resulting in apocalypse!

For all Ghanaians, yesterday felt like the end of the world! It felt like we battled evil and lost.

Wait! I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s rewind to February 8, 2008. Superbowl XLII. The undefeated New England Patriots are playing the 12-pont underdog New York Giants. It’s the 4^th quarter and the Patriots are up by 4 with 75 seconds to go. The Giants have the ball on their 40-yard line for a third-and-five. Eli Manning, the Giants quarterback, avoids a sack and floats the ball to Tyree who makes an improbable catch against his helmet for the first down. The Giants go on to win. An improbable upset! Just before the ball was snapped by the Giants on the third-and-five, the Patriots players (who already thought they had the game won) were talking smack to the Giants players on the field. They were so sure of their win they even invited the Giants to their after-game party! They had forgotten one important lesson in sports:

It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings!

Since Uruguay beat Ghana yesterday, the talk has only been about Suarez’s “hand of the devil”. Well, I contend that the Black Stars rather than Suarez committed a cardinal sport’s sin yesterday – they forgot that the fat lady had not sang!

The Black Stars are a young team. One thing youth brings is confidence and sense of invincibility. These traits can lead to a false sense of security.  Young teams are also impatient and have mental lapses. They forget to wait for the fat lady to sing.

Watching the stars play, one noticed a certain swagger and an attitude that projected the sentiment “We belong! Deal with it!” Maybe it was from winning the Under-20 tournament. Maybe it was because they were playing on the African continent or came so close to winning the African Cup.

Then was their inability to score. It was not so much as an inability as a lack of patience to develop the goal. They were trying to score from 100 miles out! It was almost like a guy who gets the chance to be with the woman of his dreams and comes even before he can get his boxers off!
 They needed to calm down.

Lastly were the mental lapses, which ultimately led to their demise.

After their first goal against Uruguay, they played as if they had already won the game. They should have been prepared for that Forlan free kick! Towards the end of the game, they recovered their game and pushed till finally Suarez had to punch the ball to prevent a goal against Uruguay. From that point till then end of the game, one saw what happens when you don’t wait for the fat lady.

When athletes, who thought they had the game won, realize they haven’t, there is often not enough time to recover mentally. At that point, the game is lost. That is what happened to the Stars. When Suarez was red-carded and the Stars awarded a penalty, they assumed they had already won the game! But the fat lady hadn’t sung yet!

Gyan’s kick was taken in haste. It was almost like “Let me get this over so we can party!” Well guess what? It hit the bar and an unlikely opportunity had been squandered.

Anyone who watches enough competitive sports could predict what was going to happen during the penalty shoot-out.  As young a team as the Stars were, they didn’t have the mettle and time to recover mentally.

The Uruguayans on the other hand battled till the very end. They made no assumptions and prevailed. I totally hate Suarez too, but harbor a certain admiration for the risk he took. After all it paid off.  We may curse Suarez all we want. We may criticize FIFA for not instituting goal-tending all we want. At the end of the day, the Uruguayans played to win and the Stars didn’t.

As we Ghanaians lick our wounds, lament our loss and curse Suarez, let us also appreciate what the Stars did. They brought much honor to their name and to Ghana.  Let us also hope that individually the players learnt a lesson from this debacle. Let us hope that in 2014, we have a team which will wait till the fat lady sings.

I was born in Ghana, became a man in Germany and made a home in the US. However, no matter how far I go, I never forget my origins – Ghana, Africa.

Why?

Because there is a bond that pulls all Africans together and to the continent.

It is a bond forged by pain and suffering, disease and hunger, exploitation and colonialism, tribal strife and inept leaders.

This bond is not static. It waxes and wanes. It grows and sometimes looks like it’s on it’s death bed.

The bond reaches far. It reaches into the hearts of immigrants all around the world – living rooms in the US, England and Australia. It reaches Darfur. It reaches the pirates in Somalia and rival factions in the Congo.

This bond has stood the test of time because it is nurtured. It is nurtured by family and friends, love and charity, the warmth of helping one another and encouragement. We cry with each other and share the joys too.

Perhaps though, its strongest sustenance is hope. The hope of something great. The hope of rising above the impediments that liter our way. The hope that it can be better. The hope that this time, it is different.

Like a clarion call, nothing gets this bond going more than hope.

So when the Black Stars made to the round of 16 as the only African team, there was hope. The hope fed the bond and the bond grew.

For the first time in it’s 80-year history, the FIFA World Cup comes to Africa. It is really symbolic that it is being held in South Africa. By the end of the first round of games, 5 of 6 African teams are out, including the Bafana Bafana of the host nation, South Africa. The Black Stars of Ghana are left standing, alone.  That also by itself is deeply symbolic, then Ghana was the first sub-Saharan nation to win independence from colonial rule.

Before the games started, I am sure all the African teams hoped to make their countries as well as the continent proud.  And all Africans, on the continent and abroad, hoped for the same.  But only one team seems to believe it more than all the others.  The Black Stars. And with their performance so far they have engendered a lot of hope in Ghana and on the continent.

…and are feeding the bond!

I rooted for Ghana in the Word Cup match against the US not because I don’t like the country I live in now. Far from that! I love the US! It’s just that Ghana and the continent of Africa needed this win more.

Many years ago Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president said “The independence of Ghana is meaningless unless it is linked with the total liberation of Africa.” Back then (and even now), that was a bold statement and many a critic berated him for it. Nkrumah however recognized how important and symbolic the Ghanaian independence was. It had spurned hope and the hope was feeding the bond. He realized that on this continent of pain and suffering, no one country was an island. We need each other. That is why the bond is essential.

That is why the success of the Black Stars is so important.

The continent needs it.  A proof that we can measure up, if just for a few weeks. A proof that if we set our minds and spirit to it, we can achieve success. A proof that given the chance, like the prepared, we seized it. A proof that in spite of wars, disease, hunger, famine and bad leadership, we can rise above it all. The continent needs that spirit, if just for a few weeks. Then that can change  and save lives.

The US has this spirit. It permeates every aspect of life here. This nation is a “Can-Do” nation. Africa could use a dose of that.

That is why I rooted for the Black Stars.