South African football bosses have unanimously committed themselves to keeping unwelcome attitudes and influences out of the local game.
‘For too long we have aped European and South American football,” said Safa spokesperson Golden Slasher Dangerboy ‘Clive” Vilakazi. ‘For too long we have looked at the way they play the game — passing, running, tackling, kicking the ball in the net — and tried to emulate it at the expense of our own style.”
In its Memorandum of Ubuntu Eshibobo, the football association identified ‘victrocentrism” as a major threat to local football.
‘Teams in the English Premiership, and national teams like Brazil and France, they are infected with a very disturbing desire to win football matches. We find this quite alien, and unacceptable in our national game. Where we nurture the spirit of sporting Ubuntu, they indulge their imperialist past by stealing balls, outrunning opponents, and even scoring goals when goalies are diving the other way.”
Vilakazi said it was high time that the local game played to its strengths, which included eshibobo skills, different eshibobo skills, other sorts of eshibobo skills, and the mental flexibility to disappear shortly before training camps.
World-class eshibobo maestro and sometime club footballer Sunny ‘Abatcha” Nene was called upon to give a demonstration of the skills that made him the world’s most successful specialist dribbler in early 1980s.
‘See there!” cried Vilakazi. ‘See how he bounces it from knee to knee and then catches it on the back of his neck! See how he kicks it up off his heel, dummies to make you think he’s going to catch it on the back of the neck, and then instead catches it under his chin. That’s class! You can stick your Ronaldinos up your bum.”
The exhibition came to a sudden and dramatic end, with Nene stretchered away for treatment. It later emerged he had misheard Vilakazi, and had thought he was being instructed to insert the ball rectally.—