In 1993, a plane carrying the Zambian team to their World Cup qualifying match in Senegal crashed in the Atlantic off the coast of Libreville, Gabon. Everyone on the plane was killed, leaving only a few players who had not flown with the team for varying reasons. A spirited effort to create a new team in its wake was surprisingly successful, but fell on the final day of World Cup Qualifying. The new team also reached the finals of the African Cup in 1994, but fell to Nigeria.
Afterwards, the team continued on a downward spiral, eventually falling to #101 on the FIFA World Rankings one year ago. But Zambia managed to qualify for the Cup of Nations, which was held in both Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. While many of the top teams in Africa missed out on qualifying, Zambia, whose team largely consisted of players from their weak domestic league, still had to navigate a field of teams filled with talent from the best teams in the world. After topping it's first round group, and defeating Sudan in the quarterfinals, Zambia faced one of the favorites in Ghana (the same country which has knocked the United States out of the World Cup in the last two tournaments). A late goal gave Zambia a huge upset, and they were on to the final match against the powerhouse Ivory Coast, who had not allowed a goal in the entire tournament.
There was certainly a ton of pressure on the Zambian players; up against a team featuring the likes of Didier Drogba, Gervinho, Saloman Kalou, Yaya and Kolo Toure among others, and with the entire nation depending on their performance. Oh, and the final took place in Libreville, just a few hundred yards from the site of the Zambian plane crash. After a cagey 0-0 game (including a penalty kick miss from the famed Drogba) the game was decided by penalty shootout, which Zambia won 8-7.
So there you have it, a story that ends up as one part We Are Marshall, one part Mighty Ducks, and far more that cannot be sufficiently analogized by Hollywood.
Soccer is compelling in part because of how contextual each match is. Most sports are simple in their background: either you win or lose. But with soccer, each match plays out a bit differently. In league play, as well as the group stages in tournaments, it's not so simple. On one day you may have to win, but you may go into a difficult away match desperate just to tie. Towards the final stages you may have to win matches by multiple goals, or things can turn in the middle of a match depending on how many goals you concede. The dynamic nature of the soccer match creates an ambiguity in tactics as well: should a coach play it safe and protect a tie, or force men forward and risk giving up a goal? Simply put, soccer matches are consistently chaos. They can certainly be boring, but they are nearly always meaningful.
And that's all before we add in the factor of international importance. Those that have spent some time watching soccer can tell you how important it is to much of the world. This is no great revelation, but even for soccer enthusiasts such as myself, it is difficult to truly grasp how enormously meaningful such performances are to their countries without having experienced the fever first hand. I was fortunate enough to travel across Europe during the 2006 World Cup, which was an experience I have craved to recreate since leaving. Still, I'm not sure that any powerful soccer nation can mimic the experience of a country like Zambia. Even without the background of tragedy, the idea of their nation as the best in Africa must certainly be powerful. With that background, this triumph had to be the sweetest feeling possible.
While Zambia's story is exceptional, soccer produces miraculous stories constantly. This is certainly in part because of its great amount of competitions around the world, but it is also due in large part to the nature of the game. Even in the two-plus years since the turn of the 2010's there have been numerous intriguing stories. Not all of them are fairy tales, sometimes the villain gets the glory. In the 2011 Asian Champions League, Al-Sadd of Qatar snuck into the tournament due to the disqualification of Vietnamese teams, then lost their quarterfinal matches but were again put through after the disqualification of their opponents. In the semifinals, Al-Sadd took advantage of soccer's unwritten rules and scored the decisive goal as their Korean opponents waited for the Qataris to kick the ball out of play. The finals, which took place in a now-furious Korea, ended in Al-Sadd lifting the trophy after penalty kicks.
And these stories aren't unobtainable for Americans. In fact, we've been fortunate to have a few wondrous moments of our own. Real Salt Lake's run to the finals of the most recent CONCACAF Champions League and the United States' miracle run to the 2nd round of the 2010 World Cup come to mind immediately.
Soccer's ability to tell stories at every turn sets it apart from every other sport. I've spent a lot of time recently pondering the most important factor in creating a good television show, and it certainly has to be the development of characters. The viewer cannot just be told the traits of a character, they have to understand their perspective, their personal development, and their experience of life. And these characters cannot be protected by the bubble of "They're so popular that they have to stay on the show," there need to be real consequences for their actions, no get out of jail free cards. The best show should make you believe that your favorite character can just disappear at any moment, only then can you truly become emotionally invested in their actions and follies.
In my experience, British shows often do this exceptionally well. Shows and characters don't just drag on, they come to ends. Yes, it's disappointing that the Office only had 14 episodes, or that the original Skins cast was gone after two series, but their end leaves an image of perfection in the mind of the viewer. I certainly prefer such endings to the dragging on of a show like How I Met Your Mother, which really could have been ended after a couple of seasons. One wonders if this is something the British picked up from soccer. Tournaments and leagues create fantastic stories with meaningful characters, then they evaporate, leaving us with only their memories (and some Youtube videos). Still, the Zambia story is more evidence that the best stories are true.
Most insane penalties ever.
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