In Sudan, once more sports transcend all tragedies, bring hope to people
Sport report by Mohamed Osman Adam
Port Sudan, Sudan (PANA)- It was a whistle that I could never forget, six months after communications were severed from Eastern Khartoum, Sudan, because of the war. The whistle was to pronounce that evening games for the young persons in our quarter, 15, Hajj Youssef, Radmia, Khartoum State, was resuming.
The place was a dusty sandy playground, clay was used to mark the penalty area, the goal keepers’ areas and the center, and the rest was to be imagined and estimated. But for me it was a more beautiful scene than Mineirão of Brazil, Celtic Park of Scotland , Wembley Stadium of England, Estadio Olímpico Universitario of Mexico, Old Trafford of England, or even Santiago Bernabéu, of Spain’s Real Madrid.
These beautiful stadiums , when packed to their teeth with thundering fans, are symbols of beauty of life. To me, our clay playground was short of a symbol of return to life, per se. And you have to have life in order to enjoy it.
That evening- when young people took advantage of a short lull out of the fear of bombardment- gave me conviction that I was still part of the world, enjoying one of the beauties of entertainment in our modern life: football.
We came out, shyly and individually, each with a stool or a dilapidated chair to see the young people playing, dressed in shabby clothes to play, forgetting about war and about Sukhoi warplanes hovering over their residential areas. And this was one of the sweetest games I have ever seen in my life.
Young men, symbol of future life, continued running, passing the ball, dribbling tossing up things, spurring dust and sweating. Still they continued playing until about half an hour before sunset, because there was no electricity and of course for security reasons.
Armed groups passed by during the game. Tension rose. But the men dressed in war-fatigue never intervened, some even stopped their truck, fitted with machine guns, to watch for a few minutes and to tease the youth “may be one of you would be our Messi”!!!.
Our small scattered crowd of elderly laughed, a nervous but it was a laughter that defused the tension. There was a feeling of normalcy, created by just those games played by children, in those impoverished areas.
Not only in my quarter but in the whole Hajj Youssef, a Khartoum suburb, it was good omen to hear this whistle of youth playing football in the evening, up until the sun set in sandy terrain.
“Yes even children are playing football there nowadays” you would hear people say, by way of convincing their interlocutors that life had returned to normalcy and people were enjoying it in that area.
In the areas where a generator is installed, a match pitching Barcelona and Real Madrid, or Roma and Virontina, was an event nobody misses. Security measures usually were lessened when an important game was played, pitching Arsenal and the Wolves, or Manchester city and Liverpool. Guns are left outside the saloon where a huge screen was fitted and it was not surprising to hear two people from opposed armed groups, shouting hurrah for the same or other team.
Football has once more proved to be a cohesive element in Sudan, a country plagued by civil war, anger and hunger. Short lived, but like the Greek mythological Hero Sisyphus, the short moment of placing the rock in the summit, after an arduous ride, and its falling back to the bottom was a joy in itself.
For us just the time of playing a game, sweating away tension and stress, winning a match or losing, it did not matter, coming together in the open was the priceless event. It was a joy beyond description.
When the Sudanese national team won a match against Ghana within an African competition for home players, it brought not only pride and joy among the nationals of that country. It brought relief, a sense of transcending the current suffering and a feeling that better future is still attainable and feasible.
Once the Pan African News Agency (PANA) reported that Sudan's victory over Ghana in qualification for the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) have brought pride and joy to a country affected by civil war.
It quoted Sudan national team football forward, Abobaker Eisa, as saying that when Sudan beat the Black Stars of Ghana 2-0 in a home game played in neutral Libya in October 2024, and needed just one point from their last two qualifiers next month to secure a place at the finals, people felt not only pride but joy, and opening towards a better future.
There was a feeling that even at those dark moments, a ray of hope penetrates and guides people. I would add there was a sense of reconciliation, a relief, a light at the end of the tunnel.
The civil war began in April, 2023, leaving millions displaced and many facing famine as the country experiences the world's worst humanitarian crisis. "With the things that are going on in Sudan right now, the civil war, we're playing a much bigger game," Eisa was quoted as also telling the BBC.
"People are in the streets to watch the games, and this is giving them a lot of joy amongst the chaos that's been going on. It makes them feel proud.”
He added "obviously we are hoping that our country gets better, and hopefully we could be a positive thing for our country as well.". One could not hope more and may be this was why Sudan’s national football team was providing top notch performance those days, being one of the best teams in the continent: hope produces miracles
-0-PANA MO/AR 29Oct2024
