Just before the World Cup, Edward made his first trip out of Africa. He traveled to the south of France, as wondrous a place as he had imagined. It inspired him to his highest caliber of play. During his two weeks of tryouts, he scored three goals playing on Bordeaux’s reserve team. But one afternoon, Edward’s agent told him that they would leave France the next day, much earlier than planned. “Why? Why are we going?”
Edward asked. “Because there’s paperwork that needs to be finished in Africa,” his agent replied. Satisfied with the answer, Edward returned to Gboko. Ahmed told him that he would pick him up in a week and they would return together to France. He never came. Later, Edward learned the details of the sordid transaction.
Bordeaux had given the agent $5,000 to pay Edward for his tryout. When Bordeaux learned the agent had used this money to bring other Africans to France for audi-tions with competitor clubs, it scuttled the deal.
This act of venality seemed to curse Edward.
Although Nigeria had been a favorite to take the World Cup, the team flamed out in the quarterfinals against minnows from Oman. The result shamed Edward, as
did the fact that his teammates had all departed to play for European clubs. The torment of these thoughts prevented Edward from concentrating on the game and maintaining his fitness. Playing for his Gboko club, he ripped thigh muscles in both legs. Because of his state of mind, Edward’s Gboko club worried that he would neglect his rehabilitation, ruining any hopes of return.
They placed him in a hospital, where he remained for eight months, stuck in his own head.
Edward’s return to the pitch has a mythic quality.
Inserted in a game—with the coveted Nigerian Challenge Cup on the line, a tied score, and painkillers flowing through him—he added the decisive goal. A few days later, he sat in the back of an open convertible that displayed him to adoring Gboko. A few months later, he achieved his European dream. His new club might not have been nearly as prestigious as Bordeaux.
It might not have been even the most prestigious club in the former Soviet Republic of Moldova. But at least the club Sheri¤ resided in the city of Tiraspol, and Tiraspol was on the continent.
Moldova had experienced its own Nigerian fad. At Sheriff, Edward played with two compatriots. For a season, the arrangement worked wonderfully. Edward scored 11 goals and won player-of-the-month honors.
The Moldavians asked Edward to naturalize and play for their national team. But as his eighteen-month contract came to its close, other clubs began to make overtures to him. One team in the United Arab Emirates tendered a lucrative o¤er that Edward badly wanted to accept. Behind Sheriff’s back, he went to visit the HOW SOCCER EXPLAINS THE BLACK CARPATHIANS
prospective team. After Sheriff’s ownership expired, he would join them.
Sheriff, however, had other ideas about Edward’s fate. It wanted to sell his contract to another club before it expired. That way, they could cash in on Edward’s success, too. According to Edward, when club oªcials learned about his trip abroad, they visited his wife and seized her passport. Edward didn’t know how to call the Nigerian embassy and wasn’t even sure that a Nigerian embassy existed in Moldova. Upon returning to
Moldova, Edward made it clear to the club that he would accept whatever decision they made for him.
They decided to sell Edward to Karpaty Lviv.
III.
The Lviv faithful idolize a twenty-eight year-old dentist named Yuri. In addition to expertise in drilling molars and scraping tartar, he captains Karpaty Lviv. As part of the culture of the Soviet game, players often obtained advanced degrees. Besides, only after the arrival of capitalism have players earned salaries that can sustain them through post-playing days. Yuri now earns enough that he doesn’t bother practicing. But after he retires, he’ll spend a few months reviewing his books and then will open shop in Lviv.
Yuri met me at the Viennese Co¤eehouse on
Prospekt Svobody, Freedom Avenue. If I didn’t know Yuri was local, I could have guessed. Like almost every Ukrainian man in Lviv, he carries a purse and has deep blue eyes. In conversational style, the people of Lviv pride themselves on having an analytical, circumspect manner, an attribute they ascribe to the presence of thirteen universities and thousands of academics in their town. Yuri prefaces every statement with, “I can only speak from my own experience, but. . . .”
Lviv loves Yuri not only for his skills, but because he is one of them. He grew up in Lviv, went to every Karpaty home game as a kid, and wanted nothing more than to play for his beloved team. And they love him, because he represents the city exactly as the people want to see themselves portrayed: articulate, handsome, humble, and hardworking. When he plays badly, he’ll admit it without any exculpation. His work rate betrays an inexhaustible passion for his team.
During his captaincy, Yuri has presided over one of the most tumultuous eras in the history of Karpaty.
After Edward arrived, the team bought an eighteen-year-old Nigerian attacking midfielder with cornrows, named Samson Godwin. Because the old Ukrainian coach couldn’t speak English with the Nigerians, the club brought in a new Serbian manager, who had spent ten years playing for Southampton Football Club in England. The Serb, in turn, recruited four players from former Yugoslav countries. Suddenly, Yuri skippered a polyglot unit that included a coach and players whose languages he couldn’t himself speak.
This was a big change for Karpaty. Even in the Soviet era, it had been renowned for its localism.
Where most Ukrainian clubs contained players from Russia and the other republics, Karpaty consisted almost exclusively of men from Lviv and its environs. HOW SOCCER EXPLAINS THE BLACK CARPATHIANS
This meant that Karpaty games reflected the implicit political reality of Western Ukraine: Lviv viewed
