What I Know about Every Dog
How long does Ill-Luck last? What is the duration of Bad Luck? Can one talk of An Unfading Jinx? Are there, for example, in the Field of Soccer teams which are destined to collect Three-Nil, Four-Zero, Five – Nothing – In that order in a tournament in the preliminaries?
Sure as The Heavens, we have superb teams – terrific players – whose boots do not stop at mesmerizing opponents’ goalies: strikers with freshly sustained injuries, who would still go ahead to score delicious goals before recognizing their condition and the need to be carried off the pitch on a stretcher.
All the same, there are no such things as Permanent Losers in any field of rivalry: contestants who are bound to sink in the waters of a tussle for a trophy, prize, medal or the like. To cling to such an opinion is to invalidate A Standing Law of Life, which upholds that a time often comes when The Underdog in a competition humiliates The Champion and experiences the ice cream taste of victory. Put simply – Yes – Every dog has its day: has a time when a mystical force or super–human agency pre–assigns the coveted trophy of a match to the underrated competitor. I happen to have a buttressing story in this respect.
It was a club-side affair and scene. The Jaguar Football Super Stars International and The Musketeers Football Club International, both in Nigeria, were set to pounce on each other in the finals of a football competition organized for club teams in the country.
In the past, the two teams had locked horns on countless occasions with predictable results: a trouncing of The Musketeers by their Jaguar counterparts in virtually all their matches! Two-Zero Three-Nil, Four–One and Four–Two. In the last, The Musketeers had succeeded in offsetting two of the four goals The Jaguar had scored them. But, perhaps, that would not have become the case, if the referee had not sent out two Jaguar players for acts of gross indiscipline verging on foul play.
In the end, The Jaguar had to play The Musketeers Nine to Eleven for the rest of the half with all the constraints such a football situation imposes on the disadvantaged team. Easily utilizing it, Musa Ahmed, Musketeers’ fairly seasoned striker nettled the only two goal she could score in the match.
Now, for the first time, The Musketeers were meeting The Jaguar in the finals of their highly rated club-side competition. Just like The Jaguar, they had humbled five different teams in order to reach this stage but unlike them often just managed to edge out their opponents with a One-Zero Win. The very opposite of the Jaguars upsetting defeats of the teams they were paired up with.
Expectedly, with the fixing of the finals between the two clubs, The Jaguars went wild with pre-victory excitement, repeating their usual taunts that they would still carry the day, even if they dispatched their over-aged corpulent players to compete with The Musketeers.
At precisely 3:00pm, Nigerian Time, The Whistle for the Opening First Half of The Competition was blown. The referee, a Ghanaian. The plan of the Jaguars was to hold The Midfield of the football pitch right from the outset and from there axe through The Defense of the Musketeers or, if they could not, keep worrying it from there until it collapsed…
For a full twenty minutes they were at it trying to record a goal but without success. Then, the remaining twenty minutes saw them lobbing the ball from far positions towards the goal post of The Musketeers, leaving their shot accurate passes that had enabled them to control The Midfield. The Musketeers held on to their 4-3-3 Football Formation that meant three solid defenders. By the end of The First Half, The Jaguar had clinched as many as five free kicks, five throw-ins and three corners-kicks they could not utilize.
Thirty minutes gone, The Players in both teams repaired to the pitch to re-commence their battle. This time, the Jaguars were bent on playing out their hearts and making The Musketeers regret their initial display of soccer showmanship and resistance! Ironically, that was when their troubles began and the only goal of the match emerged from the opposite direction. It was as though the Musketeers had suddenly put their Thinking Caps on and further solved the riddle of the mysterious cramps in the legs of their key players, as every ten minutes continued to drop them an opportunity to coast towards The Eighteen-Meter Box of The Jaguar and explode a shot in their hitherto immune goal post. It was a volley from one of these sizzling shots that The Jaguars’ Goalie, while trying to deflect from the post, ended up netting it in!
Jesus Christ of Damascus! A long-astir stadium and football pitch turned to be Ten Times so! Nay. I should have taken it up to Nearly Twenty Times! All, through the kinetic help of more wildly kicking legs and more swiftly swinging arms and freshly engaged voices not wanting to be soft on ear-damaging yells and a long WHOOPIE!
Yes! Unbridled jubilation mostly by The Musketeer Squad and their Euphoric Fans and initially unbiased football fanatics always in stadia, local or international, to solely feast their eyes on wondrous movement of nimble legs competing with as nimble ones for the roundish fully inflated leather… Of course, hundreds of just slapped faces with gaping, mouths and ones that would surely do likewise from The Jaguars camp.
The usual anarchic invasion of the football pitch by spectators in less heavily guarded local stadia and football tournaments FIFA does not know about or has not a stake in them.
Sanity duly restored at the pitch the last heart-thumping Four Minutes of The Ninety Minutes Business began ticking away. The Jaguars Stronger-Than-Lion’s Bite set to crush The Old–Fashioned Mediaeval Firearms of Musketeers.
For the most part of the four minutes, the Jaguars hugely succeeded in making Football Fools of The Musketeers in the area of Ball Possession, waist-dislocating dribbling and occasional shaming slipping of the contested ball through spread–apart legs of their anxious defenders of their lone goal. While The Jaguar Equalizer Goal still did not come The Dribbling continue to infuse in their bonded fans hopes of a last-minutes solace. And there was to be one, courtesy of the harrowing pressures mounted on the already Overlabored Musketeer Goalie with his Sympathizer Defenders. One of them later sold himself like Football Judas to the temptation of roughly tackling a Jaguars Attacker who clearly had beaten him and was then facing their Goal Keeper Idiot!
An instant non-negotiable award of a penalty kick to The Jaguar by The Referee doing his best to deliver The Best Officiating.
The wildest of the wild cheers that ever exploded in Tolerance Stadium–you should be able to guess: from The Jaguar Divide. But - Alas! – the taken kick proved vain labor. The taker had been careful not to deliver an over–the–bar, wiring his hot shot straight into the hungry gloves of Musketeer Goalie with an impatient final whistle succeeding The Malady.
Now who wouldn’t agree that Every Dog Has Its Day?
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