The last part Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen” is titled “Götterdämmerung”. In it, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, a rather voluptuous lady, sings her aria to end the opera.
Hence the saying “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings”.
The German word “Götterdämmerung” is a translation of “Ragnarök” (old Norse), which in Scandinavian mythology refers to the destruction of the gods in a battle with evil, resulting in apocalypse!
For all Ghanaians, yesterday felt like the end of the world! It felt like we battled evil and lost.
Wait! I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s rewind to February 8, 2008. Superbowl XLII. The undefeated New England Patriots are playing the 12-pont underdog New York Giants. It’s the 4th quarter and the Patriots are up by 4 with 75 seconds to go. The Giants have the ball on their 40-yard line for a third-and-five. Eli Manning, the Giants quarterback, avoids a sack and floats the ball to Tyree who makes an improbable catch against his helmet for the first down. The Giants go on to win. An improbable upset! Just before the ball was snapped by the Giants on the third-and-five, the Patriots players (who already thought they had the game won) were talking smack to the Giants players on the field. They were so sure of their win they even invited the Giants to their after-game party! They had forgotten one important lesson in sports:
It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings!
Since Uruguay beat Ghana yesterday, the talk has only been about Suarez’s “hand of the devil”. Well, I contend that the Black Stars rather than Suarez committed a cardinal sport’s sin yesterday – they forgot that the fat lady had not sang yet!
The Black Stars are a young team. One thing youth brings is confidence and sense of invincibility. These traits can lead to a false sense of security. Young teams are also impatient and have mental lapses. They forget to wait for the fat lady to sing.
Watching the stars play, one noticed a certain swagger and an attitude that projected the sentiment “We belong! Deal with it!” Maybe it was from winning the Under-20 tournament. Maybe it was because they were playing on the African continent or came so close to winning the African Cup.
Then was their inability to score. It was not so much as an inability as a lack of patience to develop the goal. They were trying to score from 100 miles out! It was almost like a guy who gets the chance to be with the woman of his dreams and comes even before he can get his boxers off! They needed to calm down.
Lastly were the mental lapses, which ultimately led to their demise.
After their first goal against Uruguay, they played as if they had already won the game. They should have been prepared for that Forlan free kick! Towards the end of the game, they recovered their game and pushed till finally Suarez had to punch the ball to prevent a goal against Uruguay. From that point till then end of the game, one saw what happens when you don’t wait for the fat lady.
When athletes, who thought they had the game won, realize they haven’t, there is often not enough time to recover mentally. At that point, the game is lost. That is what happened to the Stars. When Suarez was red-carded and the Stars awarded a penalty, they assumed they had already won the game! But the fat lady hadn’t sung yet!
Gyan’s kick was taken in haste. It was almost like “Let me get this over so we can party!” Well guess what? It hit the bar and an unlikely opportunity had been squandered.
Anyone who watches enough competitive sports could predict what was going to happen during the penalty shoot-out. As young a team as the Stars were, they didn’t have the mettle and time to recover mentally.
The Uruguayans on the other hand battled till the very end. They made no assumptions and prevailed. I totally hate Suarez too, but harbor a certain admiration for the risk he took. After all it paid off. We may curse Suarez all we want. We may criticize FIFA for not instituting goal-tending all we want. At the end of the day, the Uruguayans played to win and the Stars didn’t.
As we Ghanaians lick our wounds, lament our loss and curse Suarez, let us also appreciate what the Stars did. They brought much honor to their name and to Ghana. Let us also hope that individually the players learnt a lesson from this debacle. Let us hope that in 2014, we have a team which will wait till the fat lady sings.