The Mzungo Triangle!

And then there were 3 of us! A German named Robin (Van Persie, for comedic effect) has joined us in Manica to create a dynamic triangle of what the natives here call MZUNGO’s (white people)! His English is impeccable and to describe him briefly would be best by saying he is a combination of Justin Bieber and Bastion Schweinsteiger. Anyway it has created great excitement at the club and even greater euphoria when we all donned the red strip of Gallos! Meggo was in his normal Koscielny (centre back) role, whilst Robin was given a surprise start to his Mozambican career in the centre of midfield. Will was finally “back in the ground” as our old pal Amade Balotelli used to say, after 7 weeks on the sidelines due to his sending off on our debut. Some of those weeks were due to games being postponed, so he wasn’t actually banned for 7 weeks, his crime wasn’t that bad! However he was left on the bench to start with as Pingi and Hardlife (new management team) started Fatboy and Short (head of transport) up top. The game started promisingly with Gallos missing some early chances and dominating possession. It was then the turn of Mzungo 1 (Biebsteiger) to make his name in the record books. He went through one on one with the keeper, dodged being tackled by his own player Short, who was clumsily running back from an offside position, and slotted the ball home in glorious style. The crowd of at least 50 erupted with delight as Meggo ran up to celebrate shouting “Mzungo, Mzungo, Mzungo” and Will chanting it back with the rest of the crowd!

2 members of the triangle

Things then turned sour, as an Adrian Bikey lookalike who was partnering Meggo in defence got sent off with 2 yellows in about 24 seconds. The referee was also the one that sent Will off all those weeks ago and was back at his finest to send Bikey packing after just 30 minutes of play. This didn’t worry Pingi though as he left 3 at the back and wanted us to keep going forward for goals. The opposition in moody purple Inter Milan strips from 1995 then equalised as Meggo passed the ball to the left back who wasn’t there, but off the pitch changing his boots! Then quite soon after Waru Waru (not Waka Waka) banana kicked the ball Roberto Carlos style into the roof of the net on the volley, although it did look like it came off his knee cap. Fat Boy then scored a third just before half time with some lovely work from Simao (big friendly giant) down the wing, who cut it back perfectly for Fats to smash home.

Happiness which makes us happy!

It was 5 minutes into the second half when the ‘Triangle’ was complete; Will was “back in the ground.” He was then sent off 2 minutes later by his referee friend- NATTTTTTTTT! A corner was floated to the back post where Will volleyed first time like Paulo Di Canio into the bottom right corner (as you can tell the volley wasn’t perfect and neither was the goalkeeping). The celebration was something truly special and one the people of Manica will never forget. All 3 triangle members ran to the corner creating 3 triangles with our fingers and chanted MZUNGOooooaaaaaallllllllllllllllll. Sad but true we're afraid!Gallos then defended superbly with Meggo as commander of his back 3, including Titcho, an IT teacher who really wanted to be the goalkeeper with how deep he was defending! The 10 men came home with a fine 4-1 win and marched up the league to third. This all came on the same day as our GDM (Grupo Disportivos de Manica) girls and under 16’s won league games after our superb training regime throughout the week. The girls won convincingly 5-1 to go top of the league, with Sharon standing out with 2 goals which could easily have been 10. The U16 boys won 2-0 in Chimmoioi against FC Shoprite and set a very happy mood around the club with 3 wins in one day.

Kissing the ball

We must quickly mention the most major event in our 9 week stay to date. The arrival of 30 new footballs! It was the most exuberant we had been for ages and Mr Mann (Nelson Mannnnnnndela) made us perform a photo shoot with the shiny new balls. These included photos of Pingi laying on the floor and the balls being poured all over him, photos of us kissing the new balls and us generally having a fun time throwing them around. Thanks must go to Zambia who sent them about 5 weeks ago and Arsenal for funding them. We are using about 18 at the moment with the equipment manager Rafa (Benitez, you just knew that was coming) putting the rest into storage for the future.

He's grown another head, no seriously what took the balls so long?

The other big event of the last 2 weeks was the GDM and Emirates cup held at Anda orphanage. We had 6 teams turn up with each team entering an under 11’s, under 14’s and girls team, which as you can imagine meant there were hundreds of excited kids on a reasonably small pitch. It was also the chance of the first team players/coaches to be mini Arsene Wengers for the day and try and win pride for their teams. We had Lloyd (Mayweather) in charge of GDM youth, Chitty Chitty Chibanga in charge of Academicas, Shadreck Scooby Doo with his Congresso rabble, Alex and Abu with GiantKillers, the stupidest man alive but very nice Manuel with Costo Do Sol, Anda orphanage with no management and Ruben with his sidekick Cretin managing GDM girls. The day was a great success with 5 pitches being set up with group stages being played before thrilling finales. Zambo was chief time keeper and score master in the centre of the pitches and controlled things reasonably well in his pyjama bottoms (claiming they were stylish trousers). The U11’s winners were Lloyd’s GDM, girls Ruben’s GDM and U14’s Shadrecks Congresso, fantastic for the kids in those teams. However everyone went home happy with player cards for everyone, bread rolls, biscuits, bananas and juice after the event. Well we say everyone was happy but the players that got Bendtner player cards immediately wanted to swap for Sagna, Song or Eboue. One even asked for Messi, we wish!!!!

Lloyds winning team and Hardlife getting over excited at the GDM Emirates cup!

The other huge, very important event which happened during the tournament was the visit of the president of the Mozambique Football Association (MFA) who was visiting Manica and GDM. Therefore we had pressure on our young shoulders to make the tournament an aesthetically pleasing event to which he would be impressed. We gave all the players/coaches/referees Arsenal shirts to wear so it looked as professional as possible. He interviewed us on why we were in Mozambique, what we wanted to achieve, what we thought were the main problems concerning the country’s football and seemed to want to give us a lot of information on his opinions. The most important aims for the country in the next few years are to identify the young talent and provide them with football boots (however basic) as early as possible. The problem arises when a child is given his/her first pair of boots at the age of 14 or 15 and their feet can’t adapt to wearing them due to their feet becoming flat. Further concerns were to increase the physical strength of players in Mozambique, which is extremely tough due to great poverty, poor nutrition and lack of equipment/facilities to do so. The president was very impressive though in what he wanted to achieve, sooner rather than later, and had a great passion to want to move football forward in the country. We gave a good account of ourselves and were being filmed whilst doing so. Not sure what or where the video will go though! He was also kind enough to give us some footballs, new bibs and when Meggo cheekily asked for some goal nets, he actually agreed. He then left in his 4 x 4 with his many dignitaries and seemed reasonably impressed with our days work, although he did only see 15 minutes of action.

I'm a little teapot short and stout!

We have also been busy with a life skills competition with our many groups. These are fun games and activities with deeper meanings we talk about afterwards. The main topics are communication, respect, trust, safe sex education, unity and diversity. For example a game we played with the U17’s and girls was called ‘perfume’. It involved secretly spraying aftershave onto one players hand and them shaking 4 or 5 other player’s hands. We then asked them to all smell their hands and whether they noticed the smell or not. The main learning point was how easy it is to pass things to one another, such as diseases through intercourse. Hard Life then pulled out his weapon of mass destruction- a condom! All the kids giggled a bit but when we spoke seriously to them they fully engaged with the topic and hopefully learnt very important lessons. We certainly did anyway! Other games are simple like; rock, paper, scissors, hand slaps, broken telephone and stuck in the mud. Out of the 30+ there are, we have done about 10 in the last week and are racing to do them all first with other groups, a fantastic idea from Schalk, the main man behind everything good that happens here at GDM.

Life skill- Guess the leader

Our other sessions are still in full flow and the last 4 weeks set to be the most hectic yet. Pingi has added 2 further schools and a longer academy session on Saturdays to our programme and we are literally buzzing about from 6.30 in the morning until our last session finishes at 7.30 in the evening. The academy is the more talented youngsters from all the local kids’ teams, as chosen by Ping dog. Our English and computer lessons have been improving with greater attendance and positive work being achieved. The players are creating PowerPoint’s to show what they do when they are off the field. For example, coaching kids, gardening, cleaning at the club, learning English and refereeing. They are learning vital computer skills and also enhancing the motto of the club, ‘more than just a player’. They have also been learning internet skills since it came back last week, although as we write it’s gone off again! Some have set up Facebook accounts to communicate with friends and others just emails or learning how to use websites. In English the players love starting with a word search and racing each other to finish first. We then do very basic stuff like; weather, family, food, greetings etc, so they can start picking up basics. They also enjoy a game where we go through the alphabet trying to name football teams or players with that letter. We shouldn’t laugh but some of their pronunciations are hilarious for certain letters. They also love to swear and most of the English they learn revolves around sexual words. Great teaching we feel!

Lloyd and Gabby 'Agbonlahor' in english lesson

The player coaching course is going well with Biebsteiger turning up to learn drills for when we leave. He has no coaching experience really but has a good manner with kids and can do a great job with sufficient drills. The players have started making detailed notes and diagrams of what we are showing them, which is encouraging. We have also created a pack of notes on Waka Waka’s laptop in which they can use as a resource.

Furthermore we have met a great guy from Zimbabwe called Bright. He fled from Zimbabwe for his life leaving his wife and 2 kids at home to escape being killed. This was due to him being a teacher and Robert Mugabe believing he was teaching against what he wanted people to hear. Bright has 3 degrees from university and has 2 passions in life, to teach and secondly for the care of humans. He has no money and is a voluntary head master at a school he has made out of a derelict church, which the priest was kind enough to give him. He has Zimbabwe kids attend from all parts of Manica and runs the school with purely voluntary teachers and through donations. We felt impelled to help such a great guy, who didn’t once ask for help but just told us about his mission. We have given him pens, paper, pencils, chalk and Arsenal worksheets which has really made his world. We have also offered to do a 2 hour session for him every Monday morning which has excited the kids beyond words and given him an old football for the kids. It’s amazing how in such extreme cold in the mornings to these African kids, they still turn up at 7 am in bare clothing to play football with their friends. However their one ball was in dreadful condition and falling apart. It cost them 2 Metacais to pump up after just 1 hour of play and they got this money through begging. Therefore we feel like we are making a difference to these youngsters although we regret not being aware of Bright and his visions much earlier in our stay. We have informed GDM of his school and they are now very much in the future plans of the club, which is really exciting news to us.

Bright with his school kids at the church

We also have other highlights from our normal sessions you are aware of. Firstly we are eager to tell you about our wonder goals at our Academica’s session on a Tuesday. Will was on Brazil’s team (yellow bibs) and Meggo on Holland’s (orange bibs) at the end of the training. Firstly Will picked the ball up just after the half way line, beat about 6 players, nut-megged the 7^th and smashed a low drive into the bottom corner, just like Lionel Messi. Meggo then matched this effort with a simpler, but quite divine goal. The ball came into him along the floor from the left wing, he then chipped the ball up with one touch and volleyed from 25 yards out with the second past Shepard (the inspirational GDM U11’s keeper who somehow ended up at this session!?) into the top of the bamboo made goal. He wheeled away with supreme delight to the corner where his fellow Dutchman followed to do a very strange impression of a robot/Michael Jackson Billie Jean dance. Fantastic entertainment for the neutrals, which were a group of 4 years olds sitting at the side outside their house! We are also going through a phase of ending every session with a chorus of Batana Batana Waranay and running heedlessly around the pitch with every child following us. We blame Hard Life who started the whole charade!

Let's score some wonder goals!

Ok as always we have bleated on too much waffle for one edition, so we’ll end on our trip to Futeco Park. We went with Short and Joana in the back of the red love bug (good times!) and saw the impressive start to the moody Emirates of Manica. Although there is no grass yet the pitch has been flattened, seeds planted and when finished will be easily the best pitch in Mozambique. They plan to make a big stand for spectators and have 3 other pitches behind the main stadium. These for youth teams and community projects, but in our opinion most importantly for Gallos! Short gave us a tour of all the extensive gardening going on for future sustainable living. There were so many fruit trees being planted it was unbelievable and many gardeners popping out from the wilderness to greet us, before carrying on with their work. We also saw the yet to be completed changing rooms which were small but better than anything they have at the moment, as they currently get changed at the side of the road on the way to away games! We also saw Tasos’ house (head of irrigation and regular Gallos striker), which is next to the first team pitch. The project is moving slowly at the moment due to lack of funding, however when it is complete it will be a truly special football community for the whole of Manica. Football for Hope is hopefully going to help out with the funding for this mammoth project and will hopefully accelerate its progress. Pingi took soil samples to “Chimoioi to do document”, as he would say. No not really, to Johannesburg instead, to help increase the speed of building work in the near future. Anyway sorry to bore you once more, for this edition, from Trev and Trev thank you and good night!

The mandem at Futeco (Moody Emirates)!