Si, C'est Bon

Saturday June 10, 2006 - New York

For a number of reasons we ended up on 116th Street in Harlem crowded into a hole in the wall deli that also revealed itself to be a licensed single-chair barber shop and an African straight-to-video emporium—the Germany-Costa Rica match already available on DVD. Even standing on a couple packing flats of Nantucket Nectar it was hard to see the TV, but that was probably for the best since the élan, creativity and full force of the Argentine football birthright created holes in Ivory Coast’s defense to leave the score 2-0 at the half.



We regrouped at an Ivoirian restaurant down the block and as the Elephants did the same on the turf in Hamburg it was a bit of a shock to realize coach Henri Michel had both Aruna Dindane and Arouna Kone on the bench. Dindane was Drogba’s creative partner in the WC qualifying, and when he left January’s Africa Nations Cup following the sudden death of one of his twin daughters, Koné stepped up with his own brand of young gun excitement to bolster Drogba’s attack as the Elephants went all the way to the finals. As a coach Michel has steered several teams to the WC stage, so despite the cries of those crowded into Restaurant Farfina (“International Calls and Hot & Cold Sandwiches”) you had to wonder if he didn’t have some kind of plan in waiting to put Dindane in at 55min and hold off til 77min to add Koné. An older distinguished gentleman wearing gold-rimmed glasses and dressed in the crisp manner of a retired doctor or taxi driver quietly floated this idea; he would say “D’accord, d’accord” after every missed scoring opportunity, but his voice was generally lost amid the groans and protests of his compatriots.

Argentina looked fresh and maybe even had a little fun pulling kits and sending guys to the ground in the second half. For his part Drogba was drenched in his effort but he never sweated out his perm as he pulled himself from the turf or languished in his zone waiting for a pass, and the rest of the team followed his lead in never losing their cool. At 82 min Drogba recovered from a wild header to cop a pass from Bakary Koné and send one in with his left foot: a pretty piece of poetry that suggests the team intends to play for more than pride in Germany.

The best analysis naturally came from Andrew, who was at the airport flying out to Paris for a day or two. It would’ve been good to watch with him, because he saw another game entirely: “Did you see the way we played them boys? Did you see Drogba’s goal? Amazing! For real, man—today we have shown we can play against the best in the world!”

He was right: today was real football and the Elephants looked good in their first ever World Cup appearance. Defender Arthur Boka boiled down that weird blend of confidence and optimism even further at the postgame press conference. “I think we played a little naively,” he offered. “And we were under pressure to win.”

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In addition to writing about music for Vibe and Spin, Knox Robinson is working with the London-based XL Recordings to create and curate GHETTO ARC, a series of music releases focusing on the sound of the global urban underground from Kingston to Baltimore to Johannesburg. As an editor at the Fader from 2000-2005, Knox travelled the world documenting the intersection between music, culture, and politics--from the violent, poverty fueled funk music of Brazil’s favelas to the afrobeat ghosts of Fela on the city streets of Lagos, Nigeria. GHETTO ARC allows Knox to combine his storytelling talents and his eye and ear for talent to help bring attention to music created off the radar of today’s commercial music monolith. Let's Go Knox!

The African Game was written by Knox, photographed by Andrew Dosunmu, and executive produced by Lee Harrison of Us&Them; creative. Lee was also instrumental in producing the No Mas' gallery show, Fall Classic.