Soccer stories to warm your heart

There is hope for the human race when you consider two scenes from the soccer world in the past month. One comes from Africa and one from England. The first happened during the final of the Africa Cup of Nations where one of the unlikely finalists was Zambia. Hardly an early tournament favourite, but they surprised friend and foe and probably even themselves by being there! But reaching the final against the African powerhouse, Ivory Coast was not the end of the story. They managed, to the delight and amazement of spectators, coaching staff and even players, to win the match on penalties after extra time and so the coveted cup was theirs! As the final whistle went and the players and coaching staff rushed to congratulate each other on the field, I saw, to my amazement the coach, Herve Renard, run along the outside of the playing area apparently looking for someone. After a while he reappeared carrying a person in his arms and then the cameras panned away to the on field celebration. It was only later that I heard that the coach had gone to look for one of his players who had been injured during the match and he then carried him back to join in the celebration. For the record Zambia (2012) joined South Africa (1996) as the only countries from the Southern Region of Africa to ever win the cup, but on this occasion the real winner, in my opinion, was coach Renard.
The second scene took place during the Carling Cup final between Liverpool and the brave Cardiff City team who had defied all odds to reach the final of this knockout competition in spite of playing their soccer in the second division. The captain of Liverpool is Stephen Gerard, who has also captained England in the past and is one of the icons of Liverpool and English soccer. In the Cardiff team is another Gerard – Anthony. He is Stephen’s cousin and is six years younger than Stephen. As they grew up and played many games of soccer in the back yard, their Grandmother is reputed to have often told Stephen to be gentle with young Anthony. As the final unfolded, the drama of an early lead by the underdogs, Cardiff, was taken away by a goal by Martin Skrtel and then when the Dutch international Dirk Kuyt scored a second for Liverpool the inevitable result seemed obvious. Young Anthony, who had been on the bench for most of the match, was brought on for the last few minutes, and no, he did not score the equalizer. Rather a team-mate Ben Turner did – in the closing moments of extra time! Penalties were then to decide the winners of the prestigious cup and after Stephen inexplicitly missed the first one, the drama continued as a number of players either scored or missed. Finally as the game came to an end, Anthony stepped up to keep Cardiff alive. As he approached the ball, with every nerve in his body telling him to be calm, he missed; and Liverpool won their first silverware since 2006! Young Anthony fell to the ground, his tears mixing with the grass and mud of the Wembly pitch. 80 000 spectators at the field and several million more on T.V. felt for the youngster but it was his older cousin Stephen, who ran over to console him with a hug! I wonder what Stephen said? There is still hope because people do care.