Tidbits from the Turf

1. Some Funny Team Names:
- The Squirrels of Benin

- Atlas Lions of Morocco (which Ghanaian announcers pronounce as “Atlas Lines”- at least to my American ears.I was wondering is they were latitude orlongitude?)

- Black Stars of Ghana. The mascot refers to the black star in the middle of the Ghanaian flag (and possibly also a ship with the same name used to bring African Americans back to Africa), but when I heard it I thought it meant like “The dark-skinned athletic stars.” See how it works on both levels?

2. One of the first games of the African Cup of Nations was in Takoradi. The game was just about to start when they had an unexplained power outage. The fans and teams had to wait 20 minutes until power was restored for the match to begin.

3. One injured player required an MRI. Ghana has only one MRI machine in the whole country, and it is currently broken. The injured player was referred to Nigeria (which is two countries away).

4. Ghana is currently undefeated. I've been watching impromptu parades consisting of a few taxis and kids drumming and marching after the games. Times are fun.