Barcelona“Cry? And so much so that I did, brother. I couldn’t even eat dinner that day. It was a terrible blow for everyone,” says Umar-Farouq (Accra, 1989). Answer questions on WhatsApp from Ghana and relive that agonizing World Cup quarter-final match in South Africa (2010) against Uruguay. He hasn’t forgotten it. Acquaintance with a girl from Torelló (Osona) and a worker at Ghana Cocoa Bord, Umar-Farouq enjoyed and suffered the game with some friends at a neighbor’s electrical repair shop. “Half of the people were on the street, watching the match in pubs, shops or workshops, and the rest, at home, in groups,” he adds. “Football is a game that brings people together.” “It was a great opportunity for Ghana and for all of Africa, to have a semi-finalist for the first time in the history of the World Cup. We were very excited and we were about to do it. Until Suárez woke us up from our dream. The African dream was broken. Because all of Africa felt the sadness, not just us.” The sadness was so great that it is still a semi-taboo topic in the country, that game: “We don’t all want to remember that day. But we have to face the fear, come rain or thunder.” He expects revenge in this Friday’s game (4 p.m., Goal Mundial), on the last day of the group stage: “Yes, brother: a brutal revenge.”
The day Suarez’s Uruguay broke Ghana’s African dream
39