Why did Ecuador's defeat against Senegal hurt us so much?
We knew beforehand that facing soccer powers like Argentina and Brazil from South America was a difficult situation, but we have beaten them in the Copa Libertadores and Sudamericana, that facing Canada, Mexico or the United States was apparently the least complicated, because in Mexico boxing, wrestling is more important, in the United States basketball, baseball, American football, and athletics, in Canada winter sports, ice hockey, in Asian countries, soccer is not yet as passionate as in South America, they are better in martial arts or gymnastics, Spain, France, England and Holland are much more complicated because some of our people play there, there is an insane passion, and above all, there are millions of millions of dollars in play. In Europe, footballers are among the millionaires, but we didn't know what football really meant for African countries. We knew that they were the kings of long-distance running, but that football for them was a war against racism, against their old history of slaves, of soulless humans, as the Europeans raise them, is something else.
Ecuador's meeting with Senegal, it was a meeting between blacks from Africa and blacks from the Pacific of South America, the furthest away from their original continent. In Senegal, a country of blacks submerged in chronic poverty, but at the same time with an extraordinary physical build, not born from eating well and practicing a sport, but on the contrary from practicing a poorly eaten sport, without the security of the three daily meals for them and worse for their relatives, friends or neighbors, black people from a place where daily food is a hunt, an opportunity that there is no way to miss, because the next day it may not be there, as it is possible that there is no job. These Senegal footballers are not just team players, but each one is a hunter, endowed with a genetically inherited vitality, capable of surviving any holocaust.
The blacks of the South American Pacific of Ecuador, descendants of the Mandingo and Congolese, escaped or survived slavery in America, which was the worst human condition in history. These blacks in Ecuador were the indomitable rebels for 500 years, whom the Spanish could not subdue in Esmeraldas, despite dozens of wars and survivors of the horrible sugar cane plantations in the New Continent, where they survived on haciendas and plantations were an everyday miracle.
The fight between the champions of Africa, the blacks of Senegal against the most rebellious blacks of America, the blacks of Ecuador, was a match of titans, the rebellious blacks of the Pacific dominated, they should have even won, but Africans are a culture of hunters, of humans who do not waste an opportunity. The hunters won, and it was only because fortune or coincidence was on their side, not because they are better, the bell saved them, because the match was only 96 minutes long, with more time the blacks from the Pacific would have won, who were more skilled and resistant, they are the strongest, fastest, most daring Africans.
The Qatar World Cup is the first war without deaths after the pandemic, a non-violent way that countries, races, and religions are finding, to live with self-esteem, to make themselves known, to be respected, to admire, understand and understand the adversary, to the rival, to the other human. This World Cup, like others, teaches us that being a soccer player is as good and profitable as being an engineer, a doctor, a scientist, an artist, a great profession, within the reach of the poorest on the planet.
But it hurt us so much because our blacks from Esmeraldas are experiencing one of the worst moments in their history, due to the War on Drugs, which kills their family members or friends daily. These soccer players are an example for other Afro-Ecuadorians, they teach us that greatness is possible, even being a millionaire without being a hitman, drug trafficker, extortionist, gangster, guerrilla, policeman, soldier, thief, or corrupt politician.
