Soccer: Angola finds identity in its national team

Of all the stopovers made by Franz Beckenbauer during his epic journey around the 31 nations that are now heading for the World Cup in his homeland, the first left the deepest impression. Beckenbauer is Germany's most famous soccer son. He won the World Cup as a captain, won it as a coach and now heads the organizing committee for the 2006 finals. Back in Munich after flying a total of 75,000 miles, or 120,000 kilometers, to issue personal invitations to his tournament that runs from June 9 to July 9, he said: "Of course, you feel football in Brazil and you experience its tradition in England, but what affected me most has definitely been Africa. You arrive in Angola, and the effects of war in the 21st century are obvious. "But I was amazed witness that what the FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, says is true - football makes a better world. The game can bring tribes together." Out of Angola, where the civil war lasted 27 years, a whole generation in soccer terms, came the horror of bloodshed, infant disease and corruption. But over the past year, the agency reporters on the ground have had different stories to tell. Since Angola qualified last October, Karen Iley, the Reuters correspondent there, has sent dispatches that illuminate the difference that reaching a World Cup, never mind winning or losing there, can make to people's life and to their aspirations. Iley's latest account describes a new radio drama, "O Jogo," The Game, which begins this week on Radio Ecclesia. "It follows Anacleto, a 20-year-old Luandan street seller who becomes torn between soccer and the lure of a fast buck as a member of a violent street gang," she writes. Heather Kulp, representing the non- governmental organization Search for Common Ground, created the program in the belief that the sport can help construct a bridge between the factions. "We chose football because it represents Angola coming together as a nation," Kulp said. "It's a natural issue of solidarity and reconciliation." Easy to say, easy to dramatize. But Iley's observations bear out the euphoria that is rising like a fever across Angola. "Even in the poorest shantytowns," she writes, "Luanda is peppered with national soccer shirts, and the most ramshackle taxi buses display red, black and yellow colors of Angola in the back window." Angola is ranked 57th in world soccer, so reaching the finals is its achievement. By sheer chance, its opening match, in Cologne on June 11, is against Portugal, which until independence in 1975 had been the colonial master of Angola for almost five centuries. Not at all by chance, Angola has been stealthily taking a little back from the Portuguese to bolster its soccer prowess. And who among us does not remember the opening night of the last World Cup, in Seoul, where France fell, 1-0, to its former protectorate Senegal? Rich in oil and diamonds, poor in structure, Angola had to start from somewhere. Soccer was, and is, a holy grail in many disturbed lands, because of examples such as the Brazilians producing the most beautiful style out of poverty, and because a Senegal 11, most of whom earned their fortune playing in the French league, could beat the then reigning World Champion on merit. How do they do this? By mining their own land for gems, the brightest of which appears to be Akwa, the captain and leading goal scorer of Angola. His national team contribution is 31 goals in 68 appearances, he scored the late winner that beat Rwanda to secure World Cup qualification, and after starting his career as a youth with Benfica in Lisbon he has earned big money in Qatar. If Akwa is a demigod to the 13 million Angolans, the national coach, Luis Oliveira Gonçalves, is at least as revered. "Today when you speak about Angola you don't speak only about the war. You speak about football as well," Gonçalves said "Many journalists who come here conclude that Angola is a country with huge potential. They are right, Angola will get better at all levels in the coming years." His role as coach has moved up from guiding InterClube, the police team, to the 2001 final of Africa's Cup Winners Cup and, in the same season, taking the country's under-20 team to triumph in the African Youth championship. Today, his squad, the Palancas Negras, Black Antelopes, contain players repatriated from Portugal. Before Gonçalves assumed command, and before a Brazilian coached the squad, Carlos Alhinho, once a stylish midfield player for Benfica and Porto and the Portuguese national team, began the legitimate process of calling "home" players of Angolan ancestry playing in Portugal. The current lineup includes the goalkeeper João Ricardo, midfielder Figueiredo, and full back Marco Abreu, all journeyman professionals in the Portuguese league, all proud to be Angolans. "It's so different," Abreu had said in January when he was called up for the African Nations Cup. "It's more relaxed, a different mentality." He had, up to that point, barely seen Angola, which he left as an infant. His life will be somewhat different from the $2-a-day existence of countless Angolans. His relaxation might now be heading for a shared tension as the games begin. But he is a member of an extraordinary collection of young men in Angola's postwar history. "It was Angola who qualified for the World Cup," Gonçalves said. "It was Angola who did it alone, and I will be the only coach of an African team in the World Cup taking his own country to the finals. "If we can go to the World Cup as Angolans, it is clear we can work in other areas as Angolans." Only a game? From the street seller to the acquired wealth of Akwa, the evidence is that soccer is more than that.