Perhaps Capetonians should be grateful that the petulant, pouty-mouthed striker, Benni McCarthy, became a footballer. Imagine if he had become a gangster in his old neighbourhood of Hanover Park.
In A Beautiful Game, a new book by British writer Tom Watt, McCarthy says he grew up surrounded by crime.
”Either you stay out of trouble or you join in. And I’ve got to say it was fun joining in. When you are a boy, fighting boys from other neighbourhoods … running around with a gang, it was all like being in a movie.”
But gangsterism’s loss was football’s gain.
The book contains frank, revealing interviews with some of the game’s most recognisable names. There is an attempt to be inclusive and it features footballers from Cuba, New Zealand, Zimbabwe and Guatemala, among others.
Most of the interviews are spiced with engaging detail about the players’ lives, their upbringing and biggest influences — the kind of detail you don’t normally hear in the fast-paced world of football.
There’s a fascinating interview with Italy’s defender, Fabio Cannavaro. The player was born in Naples and literally grew up on the streets of the city. He was a ball boy at Napoli when Diego Maradona brought the scudetto to Naples — perhaps the most despised Italian city.
Cannavaro recalls the World Cup in 1990 when Italy played Argentina in Naples.
”Three hundred and sixty four days of the year the rest of Italy treats you badly; now they want you to support Italy! I am Napoletano 365 days a year,” says El Diego, the player who brought the league title to Napoli for the first time in many decades.
The book’s preface was written by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger. He argues that ”football is a beautiful game because it belongs to us all”.
Most of us will never earn in our lifetimes what footballers earn in a year. (Kaka will earn about R100-million a year at his new club Real Madrid.) But somehow most fans feel they own the game.
Football belongs to the people and the game’s best exponents are our heroes. (We never speak in the same endearing terms about corporate chiefs — however good and charitable they are).
In football everyone can play; it’s not like motor racing or golf. ”A ball, a tin, a stone or bundle of plastic held together with a rubber band; anything as long as it rolls,” Wenger says.
The book, complete with pictures, is certain to appeal to a host of football fans. There are interviews with David Beckham, Arsenal’s Emmanuel Eboue and Robin van Persie, Barcelona’s Lionel Messi, Sulley Muntari of Inter Milan, Manchester City’s Benjani Mwaruwaru, Real Madrid’s Iker Casillas, Portugal’s Luis Figo and dozens more.
Some of the interviews are drawn out, but they are not (thankfully) about people boasting about how wealthy they are. They talk about the motley ethos the game fosters, such as friendship, dedication, courage, skill, passion and family — precisely the features that endear the game to billions of followers.