GAME DAY, PART 6: GAME ON

Contributed by: Dave

After a coach finally booted Chad from the field, he and I rendezvoused on the sideline and began looking for Clay and Josh. Unfortunately, when we met, just before the anthem, Clay and Josh were with a representative from the channel broadcasting the game. Though we’d cleared our shoot through every Sierra Leonean organization possible, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) owned the rights. We wouldn’t be able to shoot the rest of the game.

We were, however, invited to stand on the sidelines and watch the game. And what a game it turned out to be.

We’d never heard an anthem like this. There was a band to accompany the crowd, but it was quickly drowned out. Full-throated, earth-shaking, passion-filled fans belted out every word. It must have been heard throughout Freetown.

When you hear Kei talk about the treatment of the team or see how the conditions they are supposed to play in lack the basic necessities of a high school team, it’s hard to believe that he willingly turned down a chance to play for Bob Bradley and the United States Olympic team years ago. Kei knew the conditions he would be asked to play under if he played for Sierra Leone. But still, he chose green, not red, to go with his white and blue.

Why? That anthem stood for everything: the president’s speech to the team moments before gametime, the masses outside whose exuberance seemed to at times threaten the team’s safety, the flag in every home on gameday. He is a part of that. He may have spent his adult life in America, but it’s clear what this game, this team, this country, mean to him.

The Leone Stars would go on to capture a 2-1 victory and move to second in their group for AfCon qualifying. For us, the result may have been irrelevant—the experience is one we never thought we’d have and one that will never be duplicated—but for the people of this country, it clearly means so much more. Maybe our sports back home are too packaged and presented too neatly. We’re told who to root for and why. We’re given canned reasons to believe someone is an underdog and read storylines meant to prompt a reaction. That’s probably what we’re doing now. But when Kei tells you that he thinks that the Leone Stars can be the next Ivory Coast, and you can see he really means it, then you see what winning a qualifying match means to a country in need of hope and a little bit of celebration, you can’t help but want to see the green, white and blue flying over Brazil in 2014.