Preparing for the 2024 Korea Africa Cup of Nations
- Ticha
- Jul 17, 2024
- 3 min read
Football or soccer is arguably the most popular sport in the world. The beautiful game is excellent at bringing people together, regardless of nationality, age or gender. The Korea Africa Cup of Nations KAFCON, which looks to foster connections in the Korea based African communities, stays true to this value. Join me as my nation Zimbabwe prepares for the 4th edition of KAFCON!
Our first and only training session took place at Seongnae Middle School in Gangdong-gu, one of Seoul's eastern neighborhoods. I hitched a ride from Incheon with our team manager and close friend Kang-Ho "Hendrix" Lee, a journey that took us over an hour. We were the first ones to get there and had to wait another hour for everyone else to arrive.
The first person of note to arrive was our captain Orein, a graduate and full time researcher in Nano Biomedical engineering at Yonsei University. He had organized matches against Seoul Division 1 Social League team Celtic, who he also captains and Ignes, who use the school field as their home base.
Once everyone turned up, it was like a mini World Cup, you had Zimbabweans, Koreans, Americans, Nigerians, English and Spanish people. Having lived in places as diverse as New York and Paris, this was my type of scene and felt like home... but back to the football!
Zimbabwe has reached the KAFCON finals in the last two years losing to Gambia on both occasions. We gained a bit of notoriety because we recruited players from other African nations, thanks to Orein's vast network. While it was not against the rules, we always felt that other teams had it in for us, which added a bit of spice to our games.
I had played in last years tournament, but this year, a chronic knee problem sidelined me from the field, instead I decided to support the team and assist them in anyway possible. The Zimbabwean community is spread out everywhere in Korea, which makes seeing each other outside of our busy personal lives difficult. So when an opportunity like this presents itself, we make the most of our time together.
One regret I didn't have was playing in the Korean summer heat and humidity. Tournament organizers Afro Entertainment were only able to reserve Pyeongtaek University's Stadium this upcoming weekend. On the other hand, the hot weather was the perfect preparation for Sunday, where we would potentially play at least a minimum of three games.
It was time to play and after a speech from the Ignes captain, which stressed the importance of competing in a good spirit, the players bowed to each other and kicked off the match.
We won the first game against Celtic and looked good, considering we were integrating a lot of new players.
The matches definitely had an all inclusive social feel, there were quite a few ajoshis (middle-aged men) mostly on the Ignes team playing and a sole girl on the Celtic team who also played a game with us. Regardless of age, almost everyone looked fit and gave it their all in the hot energy sapping weather. On the sidelines, you had myself, friends, wives, girlfriends, high schoolers, enthusiastically watching the game and eating snacks brought from the E-mart convenience store next to the school.
I also stepped on the pitch to referee a game, which was pretty stressful as I was trying to call the match fairly while trying to avoid my knee getting clattered into.
The matches ended around six pm, all the players that participated guzzled down gallons of water and munched down snacks. The training matches had been a success and contested in good spirits. Since it was a Saturday, some people including my ride back home, went out to party.
As I took a taxi back home for the cool price of 50,000won ($40) I looked out at the sun setting, reflecting on how successful the teams preparations were and enjoying the international vibe of the gathering. Keep an eye out for next weeks blog post on my KAFCON tournament experience and our teams performance!
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