Sitting with grandpa that day, I knew I am going to hear another story that touches the heart. He always want to share every part of his lifetime with me. I don't want to hear anything in that hot afternoon, I've had a hard day at work.
"Did you know our country once has the best national team in this continent at one time?" He said, looking in my direction for an answer I am not ready to give because I know it's going to birth another story.
"No grandpa" I give up.
"And did you know I was part of that national team as the goalkeeper?
My eyes lit up, I've never heard that before. Dad didn't tell me his dad was once a player. For all I know, Grandpa owns a petrol station and two different sugarcane farm in hectares.
"We were the best in this continent then, thrashing every team that comes ours way, staying at the top of the table for long. The continental cup was an easy peasy. But there was a flaw. The selfishness of some of the team to create a name for themselves without the assistant of there team mates." He continued.
"There was this guy then, Henry by name, he found a way to convince two of his mate with the words that if they score the highest goal and be of assist to each other, the golden booth and many more awards might belong to them at the end of the day. His words went well with them and they agreed. Each training match, they followed up with Henry's notion, not aware of the consequences. The FIFA world cup came, three months after, the coach already knew what was going on and once talked to Henry about it, the young arrogant guy was remorseful and lied that he will change. Which he never did."
"Our first match in the group stage was a miss, a total flop, Henry was running the whole field as if he is the only player, show two greedy friends also, before long, in front of the camera, the whole world saw what was happening. But it was too late. Our net was perforated with goals more than we could take. With the match lost, our chance of clinching the world cup gone, we went home with shame."
"We never played since then" he concluded.
That was still not enough for many people, an investigation was conducted and they found the culprit, but the pain of loosing a world cup pained our national government that they scrap the national football team and moved to other sports. Cricket wasn't the national sports before, it was football.