The Away Game

by Sebastian Abbot

  Diawandou and his teammates were crushed after the match. They couldn’t even look their coach in the eye when they headed back to the locker room. With so many Football Dreams players on the team, they had been sure of success. None of them wanted to hear “I told you so” from the other academies in Senegal if they missed out on the tournament. They were supposed to be the best of the best.

  The match had dented that belief, but they weren’t ready to give up. By the time the team made it back to their hotel in Accra, Diawan­dou had composed himself and called the players together for a meeting to rally them for the second leg. He told them they could still qualify, but it was going to take sacrifice. The most important Muslim holiday of the year, Eid al-Adha, or Tabaski as it’s known in Senegal, was approaching. Muslims around the world return home to spend time with their families and often slaughter a goat or sheep to honor Abraham’s willingness to obey God and sacrifice his son.

  But Diawandou told his teammates the only way they were going to make it to the tournament would be if they skipped the holiday and trained every day until the second game. “I said, “Gentlemen, we don’t need to go to our homes,’ ” said Diawandou. “ ‘We need to go straight to camp and train like crazy.’ ” That’s exactly what they did when they returned to Dakar, while trying to block out the skeptics around them. “People said, ‘You disgraced us. You went to Ghana and they beat you 2-0. Don’t even think about qualification, you’re already out,’ ” said Diawandou. “That kind of thing makes you more motivated.”

  The second leg took place a couple weeks later at Demba Diop, a large, weathered stadium in the middle of bustling downtown Dakar. It’s surrounded by vendors hawking everything from tires to king-size beds on the crowded streets outside. Colomer was in the audience and looked on proudly as the Football Dreams players from both sides filed onto the stadium’s worn artificial turf field in the afternoon sunlight. Ghana was dressed in red and yellow stripes, and Senegal was in mostly white. The rest of the academy players and staff sat beside Colomer on the stadium’s hard concrete stands, having made the two-hour drive from Saly.

  As usual, Diawandou set up in central defense to marshal his team from the back, a bright orange captain’s armband wrapped around his left bicep, his head a nest of short, spiky dreadlocks. Ibrahima went for a more aerodynamic look, his head closely shaved. He took his place at the center of attack, ready to use his size and nose for goal to give the opposing keeper hell. The pressure was on. Since Ghana had won the first leg 2-0, Senegal needed to better that score to qualify, or at least match it to send the game to penalty kicks. Knowing the team needed goals, Senegal pushed forward aggressively from the first whistle, with a mix of quick passes in midfield and long balls from Diawandou looking for Ibrahima upfront. Time and again, Ghana swatted them back and looked dangerous on the counterattack, with Samuel and Hamza feeding balls through to their own strikers.

  Senegal finally broke through midway into the first half with a clever assist from a little midfielder, Samba Ndiaye, the son of a poor fishmonger from Kaolack whom Colomer found on the first day of the Football Dreams tryouts in 2007. After executing a slick turn, Samba threaded a pass into the box for another Football Dreams player, Babacar Ndoye, who was discovered the second year just outside Dakar, where his father worked as a mechanic. The small, speedy winger took one touch to take him past the last defender and then slotted the ball under the keeper. Rather than celebrate wildly, Babacar and his teammates immediately ran back to their half to restart the match, knowing they needed at least one more goal to give themselves a chance. Babacar even placed his hands over his ears to block out the roar of the crowd as he stood at the halfway line waiting for the game to resume, so he could focus entirely on the mission at hand.

  But Ghana’s defenders proved stubbornly difficult to beat again, even though Senegal’s coach poured players forward, and the score remained 1-0 deep into the second half. Cissé looked to the bench for options, and his eyes settled on Serigne Mbaye, a lanky Football Dreams player known for his speed and creativity. This was his first game with the national team, but the coach wondered if he could be the key to unlocking Ghana’s stingy defense. Cissé worked it over in his mind for a moment and then called the boy over. With little more than a quick wish good luck, he subbed him into the game on the right wing with about 20 minutes remaining. Perhaps Serigne Mbaye could help Senegal’s team conjure up the miracle it needed to qualify for the tournament. After all, it was a miracle he was on the team at all.

  Colomer had found Serigne Mbaye on the outskirts of Dakar only days after first discovering Diawandou in 2007. The tryout was held on a small dirt field used by Serigne Mbaye’s local soccer school in Rufisque, a down-at-the-heels port city that spills out of the greater Dakar area. Serigne Mbaye caught Colomer’s attention as soon as he took the field. He was wiry and quick and could glide by players almost effortlessly, even though he was wearing plastic sandals instead of proper soccer shoes. He was also one of the most inventive players Colomer spotted the first year and had a knack for pulling off the unexpected, whether it was a shot, cross, or dribble. That wasn’t a coincidence. Serigne Mbaye had to be better at reading the field than the players around him.

  After Serigne Mbaye finished his match, Colomer asked his assistant, Ndongo Diaw, to call him over so they could take his picture and get the information needed to invite him to the final country tryout in Dakar. “I asked Ndongo many times to call this boy over,” said Colomer. “He didn’t turn around, and we realized he couldn’t hear.”

  Serigne Mbaye lost most of his hearing at the age of 6 after contracting malaria. His father, a customs official at the local port, died of the same disease only nine months later, compounding ­Serigne Mbaye’s misery. Sign language is almost nonexistent in Senegal, so Serigne Mbaye was largely cut off from others. His mother, Youanidou Lô, tried to send him to school, but they wouldn’t accept him, so he turned to soccer to find solace. He played constantly in the street and at his soccer school, which was only a five-minute walk from his house. Immersed in the energy and tumult of the game, it was the one place he could forget his disability and stand as an equal with the other neighborhood boys. On the field, Serigne Mbaye wasn’t the kid you should feel sorry for or tease. He was the cunning attacker you wanted on your team if you were going to win. He would sneak his mother’s best glass cups out of the house to use as trophies in these neighborhood games.

  Colomer was shocked to learn Serigne Mbaye was almost entirely deaf, but a good player was a good player. He wasn’t going to deny Serigne Mbaye his shot at Football Dreams just because of his disability. Life had been cruel enough to the young boy already, but he had refused to fold. That was the kind of determination Colomer was looking for, so he went ahead and invited Serigne Mbaye to the final country tryout in Dakar.

  The odds were certainly stacked against him, and not only because he had to compete against the best players chosen from more than 60,000 kids in Senegal. He showed up for the tryout in Dakar without ever having owned a pair of soccer shoes. Up to that point, he had always played barefoot or in cheap plastic sandals. One of the scouts at the final, Pere Gratacós, who once coached Messi at Barcelona, took pity on Serigne Mbaye and gave him his own cleats, a pair of black and white Adidas Copa Mundials. “The image of him giving Serigne Mbaye those shoes is amazing,” said Savané. “In Africa, when you have a white coach acknowledge you are good, you are very proud.” Like soccer itself, that was another legacy of colonialism.

  The scouts were a bit hesitant at first to put Serigne Mbaye on the field since they had never dealt with a deaf player before and the competition was so high. But the boy quickly showed them they had nothing to worry about. “The second the ball is running and they are playing, you go from being nervous to saying, ‘Just let the kid do what he does,’ ” said Savané. “He does this all the time playing with his friends. He has his bearings.”

  But Serigne Mbaye wasn’t selected as one of the
players headed to Doha for the final tryout. He picked up a knee injury on the final day of the test, and Colomer sent him to the hospital to get treated. That wasn’t the only reason they didn’t include him in the group going to Doha, though. Serigne Mbaye was certainly talented enough, but the Football Dreams staff was worried about what people at Aspire would think if they showed up with a deaf player. “He wasn’t one of the three because of his disability,” said Savané. “We were just starting the project and knew the frame of mind in Aspire.”

  They didn’t plan on abandoning Serigne Mbaye altogether, though. “We told him to train and stay in shape,” said Savané. “We said we would come back and help him.” Serigne Mbaye took them at their word. As soon as his knee healed, he teamed up with his younger brother to train several times a day at his dusty neighborhood pitch. If Colomer did return, he wanted to be ready.

  That day finally arrived when the Spanish scout launched his satellite academy in Thiès and invited Serigne Mbaye to join. But it was a rough transition. He barely spoke and mostly kept to himself when he first arrived because he was so scared and intimidated. At school, he would stare at the floor because he couldn’t understand what the teachers were saying. The academy tried to find someone to teach him sign language but didn’t have any luck.

  Serigne Mbaye’s mother eventually contacted Diawandou and implored him to help her son. “I called Diawandou, and I said, ‘I give you this boy, you can help him,’ ” said Serigne Mbaye’s mother. “In the beginning, Diawandou made decisions for him. Whenever they needed something, they spoke to Diawandou.” The academy moved the two of them into the same room so it would be easier for Diawandou to help Serigne Mbaye with whatever he needed. They also bought the player a hearing aid, but he refused to wear it because he didn’t like attracting attention to his disability. “The only place he wants to stand out is on the pitch,” said Wendy Kinyeki.

  Serigne Mbaye training at the Football Dreams academy in Senegal.

  The pitch was the one place he didn’t need much help. “Serigne Mbaye is so very good,” said Ibrahima. “If he dribbles against you one-on-one, he will finish you.” He also had exceptionally good game intelligence, likely because of his disability. “He is good at reading the game,” said one of his coaches, Jordi Rovira. “He knows where he needs to go each time. He knows the solution.”

  Whenever Rovira had trouble communicating with Serigne Mbaye on the field, he got assistance from Diawandou or one of the other Senegalese boys since they all spoke Wolof and could help the deaf player understand. Over time, the kids were able to pull Serigne Mbaye out of his shell off the pitch as well. Rovira’s wife also took it upon herself to help Serigne Mbaye and began holding one-on-one classes with him. She taught him basic things like writing his name, which helped build his confidence. He learned to read lips as well and became much more talkative, even though it was still difficult for many to understand him. “That’s how he learned to say people’s names,” said Kinyeki, who watched over Serigne Mbaye and the other boys like they were her own kids. “Someone would look at him and say a name and he would try to copy it. He couldn’t exactly say ‘Wendy,’ but it would still come out.”

  One of Kinyeki’s most cherished memories was the first time Serigne Mbaye said her own name. She had suffered a severe asthma attack and spent two days in her room at the academy recovering. Serigne Mbaye approached her when she finally emerged to get some food from the cafeteria. “Wendy, sorry,” said Serigne Mbaye as well as he could manage and walked away. Kinyeki stood awestruck, her eyes welling with tears. “It was just two words,” said Kinyeki, her eyes wet once again. “Serigne Mbaye will always hold a special place in my heart.”

  He eventually grew so comfortable at the academy he even developed a reputation as a bit of a joker and loved to needle his teammates and the staff to get a laugh. “He is the biggest clown,” said Savané, the Senegal country director. “All the other kids would show me deference as the director. But Serigne Mbaye would walk right up to me, and the other kids would help explain he was making jokes, saying he needed new shoes or saying the other kids were crazy.” Savané always walked away chuckling and marveled at Serigne Mbaye’s strength and character. He wasn’t alone.

  “Serigne Mbaye is one of those people you meet who changes your life,” said Kinyeki. “When you want to think about all the things you don’t have, you think about Serigne Mbaye and his attitude to everything he’s gone through. He still remains optimistic. He still remains strong. He still laughs. He’s still cheerful. And he can’t hear. The rest of us, we can hear, we can see, we can walk around, and we whine about everything that’s wrong in our lives. And he doesn’t. He just teaches the rest of us something. Just be grateful for everything you have because you never know.”

  Serigne Mbaye was clearly grateful when he found out he had been selected to join Senegal’s national team. After the squad lost to Ghana, the coach, Boucounta Cissé, was forced to replace an injured player for the second leg in Dakar. He needed a winger, someone with speed and creativity who could trouble Ghana’s defenders. A few weeks earlier, Cissé had taken the national team to play a warm-up match against the Football Dreams kids, and one player at the academy had stood out in his mind. “Serigne Mbaye played very well,” said Cissé. Despite his disability, the coach thought he might be able to help the squad. Plus, Cissé liked the idea of being the first coach to select a deaf player for the national team.

  He ran the idea past his good friend at Aspire, the doctor Babacar Ngom, who thought it was excellent. In fact, the doctor was the first one to tell Serigne Mbaye he had been selected. He called him into his room at the academy, and Serigne Mbaye lit up with a smile and gave him a huge hug when he found out. The rest of the staff and his teammates were just as excited. They knew how talented he was and could see how much making the squad meant to him. “Everybody on the team was happy,” said Ibrahima. “It motivated us.” But Serigne Mbaye wasn’t content with simply being on the team. He told the academy staff that he wasn’t going to Dakar just to ride the bench. He planned to play.

  As Serigne Mbaye took the field with 20 minutes left in the match against Ghana, Colomer and the other members of the academy in the stands looked on in wonder. The fact that Serigne Mbaye made the team had been hard enough to believe. Now he was actually getting a chance to show what he could do. “The second he came in, the dynamics of the game changed,” said Savané. “He brought energy, speed. He was relentless.” His presence lifted the spirits of his teammates as well, but still the score remained 1-0.

  With only minutes remaining, one of Senegal’s defenders played a long ball out of the back. A teammate managed to get his head on it at the top of the box, and the ball skirted to the right of the goal, where Serigne Mbaye ran onto it with every bit of speed he could muster. He managed to reach it just before it went over the end line and chip it back in front of goal, where one of the team’s strikers was running at full tilt. The keeper jumped up, and it looked like he was going to make the save. But he couldn’t bring it fully under control, and the striker managed to knock it loose and tap it over the goal line, sparking delirious celebrations. “It was unbelievable!” said Savané. “It was like a Hollywood drama. The crowd went nuts and people started chanting Serigne Mbaye’s name.” He was the one person in the stadium who couldn’t hear it as he danced around in happiness with his teammates.

  But the game wasn’t over. A penalty shoot-out now loomed to determine who would qualify for the tournament. Senegal’s coach tasked Diawandou with deciding who would take the shots for the team. One of the players he turned to was Serigne Mbaye, who was still riding high after his last-minute heroism. That joy was now tinged with a healthy dose of nerves. He watched as Ghana’s captain, Hamza, whacked his team’s first penalty toward the bottom left corner, only to have it saved by Senegal’s keeper, sparking raucous cheers around the stadium. Showing no nerves, Diawandou walked up to the spot next and calmly stroked Senegal’s first
penalty into the back of the net. He ran over to high-five his keeper and then urged the crowd to cheer even louder.

  The advantage had flipped by the time Serigne Mbaye stepped up as Senegal’s fourth shooter, and Ghana was one shot up. He walked from the halfway line toward the penalty spot, his calm gait belying the anxiety he felt inside. He flicked the ball into his hand with a neat roll of his foot and held it for a moment before placing it onto the turf, lining it up exactly and stamping the ground behind it. He slowly walked back toward the 18-yard line and waited for the referee to give his signal. He sprinted toward the ball and then slowed at the last moment, cutting it toward the left corner. His ploy tricked the keeper, who dove the other way. But agonizingly, the ball bounced off the left post and rolled out of the box. Serigne Mbaye’s hands went to his head in anguish, and he looked around in a daze.

  Watching from the halfway line, Ibrahima couldn’t believe it either. “I was surprised because I had never seen Serigne Mbaye miss a penalty before,” said the striker. Serigne Mbaye slowly walked back to his teammates, shaking his head in disbelief. Diawan­dou walked up to give him a pat on the back of the head and told him not to worry. But the deed was done, and Ghana could win the game with the next shot, knocking Senegal out of the tournament.

  Everyone was forced to wait a few moments as the referee ran over to confer with one of his linesmen. Ghana’s next shooter, Abraham Anang, whom Colomer found in Accra during the second year of Football Dreams, stamped his feet nervously as he stared down Senegal’s keeper. Serigne Mbaye had a bit more time to wonder how his assist would be measured against his missed penalty kick if Senegal went on to lose the game. Finally, the referee blew his whistle and Abraham jogged toward the ball, only to scoop it over the crossbar. The crowd cheered wildly, and nobody was more relieved than Serigne Mbaye.