We like Eboue boue, we like EBOUE!!!!

Hello folks or Bom Dia as it is out here and apologies for the 2 week delay in blogging, it’s been absolutely mental! We are now fully settled in to our ‘basic’ lifestyles, to put it politely, and have been extremely busy avoiding; cars aiming to hit us, angry Libyans (more on that later), very drunk football fans, African maniacs at the discotheque and the wrath of the gaffer Miguel. Oh yes and we have also been busy on the coaching/ IT teaching/ refereeing/ gardening front, which are probably the more important reasons we are out here (John we hope you’re reading this bit!) Ok so onto the hardcore stuff. Brace yourself, take a breath and here we go (we warn you now, a lot of it is actually quite boring!)

Bom DiAAAAAAAAA!!!!

After an intense meeting at moody Nando’s with Hardlife (David if you remember) and Pingi (Pingu for comedic effect), we thrashed out a splendid programme of events which would certainly keep us on our toes. This is also a crucial coaching point for many technical drills, whether beginner or intermediate we think you’ll agree? Anyhow we left the boardroom so to speak after about an hour and went home to the club for a pleasant dinner of rice and beans cooked by Mama. Mama is amazing! She cooks, cleans kits, tidies the club and generally does very Mama like things. However we do a have a bombshell to drop, sadly she is no longer with us. She’s not dead! She has just been withdrawn from her food services due to conflicts of interest between some of the players and the quality of her Sadza (a maize based product which actually tastes of nothing).  So that was quite a shock to us because for 4 weeks we relied on her to keep us alive with rice, rice, beans, Sadza, rice, rice, Sadza and spaghetti. Hang on we forgot some rice on that list! Anyhow we battle on with bread which costs 4 pence a loaf, bananas, tangerines and probably the weirdest of the lot- sugar cane. They all take the ‘Michael’ out of Meggo for the way he chews it with his front teeth actually struggling to get to the sweet stuff. The technique is very particular as the back teeth have all the power to munch through the cane and Pingi is the ultimate expert of such fine dining. He is also addicted to bananas, he seriously loves them as well as Sadzaaaaaaa.

Will in gardening action at the club

In terms of our sessions we have really got into the swing of things out here. We’re slowly getting the lingo and our whistle technique is really coming on a treat. It was different coming here and whistles being the coaches main method of communication as we are used to just shouting to control English kids. We have now started training the GDM (Grupo Desportivo de Manica) girls team in the early morning session and take it in turns alternating with GDM under 17 sessions. However it is the girls who are the more intimidating as they take a fancy to our English accents, especially when we shout “swap over” and all of them roll with laughter, copying us over and over and over again! A particular highlight was hosting the Champions League final in a skills corridor competition where the aim was for the girls to dribble successfully through a barrage of passers either side of a small dribbling lane without being hit. The last one to be hit would be the winner and the match was absolutely fantastic with the celebrations going long into the night for the winner, who was by some coincidence also Barcelona. When we say celebrations what we really mean is an African tango in the middle of the pitch.

Congresso kids in action

The girls then won their first match EVER (apparently), 3-1 after a lengthy team talk (an obsession out here) from us, and their manager Ruben hailed us as Arsene Wenger (Meggo) and Jose Morinhou (Willy). So for a week we were on top of the world thinking we were the cream of Mozambique coaches. However the girls then lost 2-0 in their most recent match which brought us right back down to earth with a rather hefty bump! We hold our heads in shame!

The Professor and the 'special' one

In terms of the U17’s, we are pushing them hard in training with Hardlife’s help but so far lacking in turning the hard work into efficiency. We lost to Vumba U17’s (moody Spurs) in a thrilling encounter of the local rivals. It was quite a heated affair though (not because of the players’ tempers, just because it was really, really hot) and in a game with one chance for them and 84 for us, we lost the game 1-0. Meggo thought he was being clever with the 4-3-3 formation but the chances just couldn’t be put into the net. Pingi also stormed onto the pitch to snatch the referee’s whistle and take charge of the officiating because he felt the ref was too biased towards Vumba. He then went on to play an extra 10 minutes at the end in desperation of us getting a goal! The next week we finally scraped a victory against the GDM U16’s (whom we also train) and who are managed by Chibanga (a player from the first team who is extremely short and reminds us of CJ), just thought we’d throw that in there randomly. We won 2-0 and this classic win helped us regain faith in our coaching abilities.

The U17's huddle before their epic 2-0 win

Our younger kids sessions have also been stepped up a notch as we introduce them to Eboue dancing (we like Eboue Boue, we like Eboue Boue), bum relays, piggy backs, tasty games of traitor, bulldog, stuck in the mud and generally very silly games which probably make us look extremely stupid! Oh well, Meggo coaches in his swimming shorts/boxers and Will in his moody Ray Bans anyway so the humiliation can’t really get any worse. Another highlight was Meggo shouting “bum the ball, just bum it” during a relay race using the under 11’s posteriors. Luckily the CRB system is a bit more relaxed in Mozambique! Another treat was the invention of ‘Musical Eboue’ at Anda orphanage, whereby Meggo sings I like Eboue, boue over and over until he suddenly stops and the kids have to sit down as quickly as possible. Basically a moody musical bumps, just with Meggo looking stupid again, which fits in with the beard he now has through not shaving for a whole month. He says he’s living naturally and in the spirit of Africa, everyone else just thinks he’s a tramp!

Keep it going boys!

Our favourite part of the sessions though has to be the singing at the end of every one. Hardlife always starts with a game of thunder, rain and lightning whereby he rubs his hands together and claps every so often for thunder. Sounds strange but very funny! Then our favourite tune begins (no not what’s my name by Rihanna, which Balotelli can’t stop singing), but Batana, Batana, Batana, Batana Waranay. Hard to get the tune across through words but this chant/song would sound amazing at the Emirates and on the Ibiza clubbing scene. We feel the rhythm of the Batana under our skin and just jive to our hearts content. The translation of the song has something to do with the players bum cheeks working together as one, like a team (before you say it, we know we have an obsession with bums in this blog!) We have also introduced compulsory football celebrations whenever a player does something good. Therefore the majority of each session consists of kids just running to the corner of the dirt pitch doing Drogba aeroplanes, Anelka butterflies, Van Persie fist pumps and Crouch robots (Meggo is trying to get this one off the ground with limited success!) Hardlife also has a great catchphrase of ‘head up for vision’, which we just keep shouting at the kids when we want them to dribble with their heads up.

Batana Batana Waranay!



Another part of our programme out here is player development through a coaching course in which they can learn from for the future when we leave. Drew and Adam have already shown them a lot of drills but there are still many that we are pulling out of the wardrobe. Well not so much wardrobe, just a bag full of notes from London. The first week went down like a lead balloon with 4 players turning up and us basically delivering a session to over 30 kids. Absolute nightmare! The numbers are ridiculously tough to plan for and the pitches all seem to be on hills in very confined spaces wedged between small villages of shanty shacks. Even a school pitch we attend on Tuesdays is extremely tiny and we have 22 kids to coach on. However because we are such great coaches, we improvise with these extremely difficult circumstances and perform miracles which Jesus would be proud of.

We like Eboue boue dance

Another issue is that we only have about 8 footballs left because the moody Sondico’s Meggo bought from Sports Soccer have literally burst, fallen apart or disintegrated. Also a young chap called Panache (6 years old) broke our football pump whilst attempting to help us out and we swear he has stolen a ball or two over the last few weeks. He is quite cute though so we let him off. Another of our favourites is Simba who wears a Disney shirt without the Lion King on it and is always hanging around the first team pitch where we do some sessions (Campo Municipal). We swear he must live on that pitch and he’s a great little keeper for the U11’s. Anyway back to the point of the coaching course, this week was much better with 12 first team players attending and making notes on what we were showing them. Success we think you’ll find!! There is a slight issue with time keeping though, whereby the players turn up 30 minutes late for sessions for no apparent reason. Life in Mozambique is much laid back compared to London and we do struggle to just relax to fit in with their lifestyles!

Hello there young chap

Furthermore we also run an hourly IT lesson for players at the club from 6-7pm Monday to Friday. The attendance hasn’t been as great as we had wanted, but those who do come are definitely becoming masters of Word art and custom animation on PowerPoint!

The first team are also doing very well at the moment with 2 wins in a row in the league which leaves them top at the moment. They beat FC Shoprite (the biggest shop in Mozambique, right up there with Tesco and Walmart- well not quite) 1-0 at the Campo Municipal with all the action happening off the pitch for us. Obviously being too good for the first team (Championship equivalent to England), we watched from the sideline only to be distracted by a strange fella Balotelli nicknamed ‘Snoop Drunk’. This is due to the fact that he had the same silly pony tail and goaty type beard as Snoop Dogg but was extremely drunk to the extent that he walked bent at a 90 degree angle. He literally looked like he had no spine in his body for balance and randomly kept shouting stuff at us the Muzungo’s (white people), probably because we stood out in the crowd. He was with another chap who was also quite plastered on the Manica ale and ended up fighting him for no apparent reason. We don’t think they watched any of the match before the police (more army men with batons rather than guns) threw them out of the ground on 27 minutes. Short but very sweet entertainment! This weekend just gone GDM beat a team called Pipeline 3-0 with Flex (a striker who looks like El Haji Diouf) scoring twice and Mario (he doesn’t look like anyone really) scoring the third. So a jolly good result for our boys and left Miguel very happy, although you wouldn’t know it by the way he carries on. Bloody hell! First thing Tuesday morning when everyone’s back to training he goes on and on and on about the game. We swear he literally goes through every little event in detail with funny faces and movements to accompany. We can’t be sure though as we don’t really understand what he’s saying in Portuguese!



Relay races with Will, Hardlife and Chibanga



Oh another highlight, or perhaps more a low point was Miguel (the volatile gaffer) shouting at Meggo for talking while he was. “Adamo if you want to talk go awayyyyyyyyy,” to which Meggo replied, “sorry” in a rather sarcastic manner he then took one step backwards from the semi circle and just stayed there. A funny moment to look back on but very scary at the time! It’s also very important to talk about the Gallos games (GDM reserves) in which Will is still suspended and Meggo is still holding his own as the rock in the centre of the defence. We have played 2 games since we last bloggified and to be quite frank we can’t remember anything spectacular happening in the first game except a late strike from, as Will puts it, ‘fat boy’ which gave the mighty Gallos a 1-0 win, their first of the campaign. Our second game was a bit topsy turvy however with both defences at odds and evens on the beautiful turf (gravel really) that is Campo Municipal. The team were 1-0 down at half time and Balotelli was brought back from injury prematurely when ‘fat boy’ (not sure of his name to be honest) up front twisted his ankle. Pingi ripped into the boys at the break in disgust, although we’re unsure if he’s really the manager or just a fan. We then levelled to 1-1 with a dodgy Balotelli penalty and could have taken the lead when he went one on one with the keeper to trip over the ball and fall in great style. Again we question his self-administered catchphrase of ‘one chance, one goal’. The opposition then had 2 players sent off for abusive language and then took the lead with a clearly offside goal. This made it tough for the unbeaten Gallos, however the skipper who has no name except ‘teacher’ because he teaches strangely, stepped up and smashed a first time shot on the turn. So we kept our unbeaten record in-tact and are still on to beat Arsenal’s 49 unbeaten run of 2004.

Meggo scaring the orphans!

We have also had some experiences away from the pitch which we must mention. Firstly the introduction via Zambo to Vumba Lodge, a restaurant with an extensive menu of chicken, beef and fish and an owner who looks the spitting image of Gary Glitter. Strangely though he speaks with a Portuguese accent and plays 80’s music on loop with such joy on his face. The night was made even more special when the governor of Manica came in for a public event, escorted by police and FBI (nah not really FBI, it just sounds better). It’s also worth saying that for a terrific meal the cost came to just 250 metacais for the 3 of us, which is just 5 English pounds. This is the way England should operate their economy, earn less and spend less- job done.

Thumbs up for great coaches

Furthermore we watched the champions league final in the club house with Chandalia (security, barman and English teacher) charging an entrance fee of 10 metacais (20p). It was absolutely rammed on the wooden benches with 10 minutes to go before kick off when suddenly ‘BOOM’ a power cut! People were in up-roar and strangely Chandalia went missing for the 30 minutes the power was off only to return when the game was back on. So we missed the first part of the game but it was 0-0 which was not too much of an issue. It also appears that most Mozambicans (yes Zambo you) are Barcelona’s biggest fans, we though, were just happy Man United got battered ha ha ha!

Skills corridor

Another highlight was Mr Mann (Nelson) taking us to his humble abode, treating us to bread and honey, mango water and a bumpy ride in the love bug to the orphanage and back. The most worrying thing was when he said “let me show you my bedroom” and opened a door to reveal about 30,000 chickens just rammed into this small room. When we say 30,000, it was probably only 3 but we ran away so quickly we couldn’t be sure. Later that night Pingi also caused quite some controversy when he stuck his middle finger up at a mad Libyan driving at 100 mph towards us crossing the road. Pingi strutted across with such pride before suddenly the Libyan did an emergency stop in his 4x4 and started abusing us in a bombardment of Portuguese. He finally threatened to get the police on us and sped off up the road. We found out the next day that he actually did bring the police to the club but our trusty security guard (Chandalia and not the other one who’s always drunk or asleep) sent them packing by telling them we didn’t live there and went up the road in the opposite direction.

Hi Guys!

We also had a random incident with a small monkey which a man was selling for 800 Metacais (16 pounds sterling) and Will very nearly bought. Strange we know but felt this was worth telling you about!

Monkey eating a banana

Finally we must finish with our experience of another night of African clubbing. It started well when Joanna’s (a fellow mzungo or branco as they call us out here-white person) dad picked us and Pingi up to hit the town. However we were in shock when out first port of call was a stranger’s house party who actually turned out to be a prostitute celebrating her 25^th birthday! All her friends were also from the Manica Red Light District but were extremely friendly, offering us buffet, alcohol and some fantastic music (only after Meggo asked a random little kid to go and get some speakers). We are now famous faces in the Red Light District of Manica- but not in that way!! It was probably the most random experience of our lives but we had a great time and will definitely be going to their next hook up (if you pardon the pun). We then ended the night with a rave up at the Nan and granddad disco until about 5am with Joanna’s friend in the club buying us drink after drink, getting Pingi absolutely wasted! Good times!

OK that’s it for this edition (hello are you still there????) Overall we’ve had a hectic 2 weeks and feel that many more await us. There’s so much more we haven’t mentioned but they would probably bore you to tears anyway. For now obrigado (thanks) for reading, take care and ate logo (see you later folks). We know the Portuguese is still quite poor here, but we’ll keep working on it!!!!

Ate logo (See you later)