A Facebook comment on a recent post from this blog prompted my attention to be drawn into looking at the game on a different light. The last time I was on TV doing commentary analysis was ages back. The comment sung heaps of praises on a match I rubbished after I watched it at the FNB Stadium.
Actually, the match may have been juicy, but my bone of contention was the lack of football awareness on the part of Kaizer Chiefs. It was surprising how they were on the score sheet the first time. After that, it was more surprising they registered a single goal more.
That is the fun of the game sometimes, as you stamp the catwalk, strut nothing on the ramp to talk about, and win something sounds as attractive as wining Lotto. The Chiefs' coaches would surely feel the same.
For starters, my point is that television is such a wonderfully deceitful gadget. Wonderful because the normal and majority of the audience are on it for entertainment. Given that line of consumption, it is better to stay put and as an added bonus, there is all the benefits of the commentary.
Furthermore, there is the slow-motions and zooming in to see the players almost at a one versus one basis and regularly. The statistics and general background information from the the men behind the microphones is priceless.
The few people like myself, get really bored by all this. The worst part is that the view is restricted to the desires of the producer or director. That box of the transmitted mobile images excludes other areas of our interest.
It is for this reason that the TV viewer in question and myself differed in our opinions of the same match. Up to the moment Amakhosi scored, they were static off the ball in a way I have never seen. The man on the ball would have no options.
The potential wing attack never developed to offensive options and the simple passing done by Surprise Moriri surprising eluded the entire Chiefs line up somehow. It may have been hard for many who were even at the stadium to see as they were off-the-ball incident.
Countless times, the Glamour Boys gave away possession cheaply and it was at that point that Sundowns contributed to making the match boring as they never capitalise, not even once. That aside, the Pretorians were much accurate in passing and ball-control as well as the movement off the ball.
I was extremely impressed by their overall performance as potential kings of South African football. They deserve to be the nucleus of the national team with a few additions from other teams. It could be the quality of the players or a contribution of great coaching.
Having dwelt so much on local football and TV, I must make mention of a sensitively controversial observation. While the European and South American leagues have great entertainment, the English Premier League has a growing that leads to debates of it being the best in the league.
As a very strong marketing tool, the English can only access a single match a day. They have to go to the stadia to experience more and real action. It is for that reason that they record full-houses every week.
The rest of us have the luxury of watching about three matches each weekend day. Being glued to the screen the entire weekend gobbling that free entertainment means we divorce our own league and engage the English game as our own.
In getting to know that league than any other, we enjoy and praise it and find it as unequalled in quality. As permanent admirers of that super product, attendances in matches, especially in Africa suffer a great deal.
At the end of the day, the English football enjoys our patronage as we have turned into its addicts at the expense of our own, and that passion grows stronger week in and week out.
Of course, the 12557 of us who attended the Chiefs vs Sundowns match had a choice to watch the matches on the telly, but given the fan-base of the two and the significance of the match, that was unjust. Chiefs' bad run since the sacking of their coach was the biggest excuse and there were more Orlando Pirates fans rooting for Chiefs than Amakhos' amahle.
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