World Cup Blogs 18: Nigeria

By the time I'm blogging about them, Nigeria are heading home.  Though, like Morocco, they hail from Africa and are out of the World Cup, the differences are stark.  Not least when it comes to the manifestation of the Christian faith.

Whereas the number of Moroccan believers equates, in known likelihood, to not many more than the Moroccan football fans that headed to Russia, Nigeria is a little different.

On returning home Nigeria will resort to playing internationals back in their national stadium, which holds just over 60,000 people.  Or they might play in their southern, second national stadium, the second largest in the country, which holds 45,000.

This second stadium has the same capacity as the Deeper Life Church that opened a couple of months ago.  If you spare a few minutes to watch this video I can contribute the following: 

There might be a thousand times as many people at that church, but our church can match them for the complication of parking for the service . . ..

World Cup Blogs 17: Morocco

In an earlier blog I told how my wife attained Morocco in her workplace sweepstakes. (Workplace sweepstakes are a vanishingly rare experience for Baptist Pastors so I have to live my excitement through hers . . .).  Not for the first time, Morocco have failed to set this World Cup alight - they have prevented my wife catching any gambling addiction bug -  but they do provide a happy byway for my blogging.

Morocco is obvious enough as a nation - it's on the North African Mediterranean coast spilling round the corner to the Atlantic coast.  Isn't it?

A couple of bits of what looks like Morocco are in fact part of Spain (Yes, Spain is in Africa too).  But then, moving round to Morocco's southern border we come to . . . um . . . Morocco.  Or is it Western Sahara?  On that issue many lives have been expended.

There is, then, a vast but sparsely populated chunk of Atlantic Africa which may or may not be a country, two countries or part of another country or some such combination.

Western Sahara does have a team (they also have a stadium but that's in the part most certainly claimed by Morocco so unusable to them).  Like many similar awkwardnesses, Western Sahara are part of the CONIFA group.  Here you will find Tibet, Northern Cyprus, Zanzibar and the like.  These nations (or otherwise) are the refugees of International Football.  This is typified by this year's CONIFA World Cup which was hosted by Barawa (an area in Southern Somalia).

Perhaps you are wondering how Barawa found the stadia in their war-torn bush country to host the tournament.  The answer is - they hosted it in and around London.   Here's Northern Cyprus playing Tibet - in Enfield.

You thought you understood Morocco?  You thought you understood International Football?  Human beings have made the world a complicated place. London somehow always ends up involved it seems to me.

World Cup Blogs 16: Mexico

During this World Cup Mexico is the star of North America.  Canada has only appeared once (1986) and this time the USA miserably failed to qualify.

Nor is this stardom anything new.  Mexico has appeared in the Tournament more often than almost any nation, including England and has hosted it twice.  The 2026 World Cup, now to be co-hosted by the three North American nations is not hosting match of equals.

Not of equals.

When I visited Cuidad Juarez many years ago across the border with Texas, USA the experience in the photograph was true then also.  On the left is the (clear) highway from the USA into Mexico.  On the right the highway from Mexico to the USA.  Getting to Mexico was not a problem, getting (in my case back) to the USA certainly was.  Donald Trump is simply an unpleasantly boisterous and arrogant version of an old truth.

The migrants in the Mediterranean represent the same stark inequalities, but the Mexican-USA border is the land-link which most illustrates the way of the world.  It was once the British Empire, of course (before I begin to sound self-justifying).  After the Windrush celebration this weekend I am very mindful of that. 

Again - keeping the World Cup in perspective - were Mexico to win the competition there would be wild celebrations yet the situation on this border would not change on the Monday morning afterwards.  America First.

They are not, however, the blindspots of heaven - a border that no Mexican, Briton, American or Somalian has any right to expect to cross - ever.  But by grace . . .

After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.

World Cup Blogs 15: Japan

Every World Cup is about much more than goals and results.  That Iceland, for example, are there at all I noted in an earlier blog is an amazing achievement.

Then there's Japan.  They have become famous in this tournament not for the players but for their fans.  Not for their fans during the game either.  But because (and difficult to imagine how counter cultural this is to me, and English football supporter) after their first game their fans were filmed cleaning up their litter before they left the stadium.

Bluntly, when English fans go to a tournament we are grateful if all of them have left the seats fixed in place.

If goodness is a powerful cultural weapon in a football tournament, how much more true are the words of the apostle Peter regarding goodness as a powerful weapon for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ:

Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.