World Cup Bets: Cancel Outstanding Ones, Default on Others and go Hiding!

World Cup Bets: Cancel Outstanding Ones, Default on Others and go hiding!

For the uninitiated, this might be billed as the last World Cup that people make bets simply because the erstwhile safe bets to lift the World Cup are now very very far away from South Africa. Somebody should be excused for concluding that football maniacs will never bet on a football outcome in this generation. Far from it, gamblers are the most unrepentant lot in the world. It is not that they refuse to learn or that they are unfortunate dimwits, no, it has to do with the deeply ingrained human nature of hope. Everybody hopes for a better tomorrow, gamblers simply take it to the next level.

I am sure the bookmakers too are licking their wounds. With football giants and favorites Argentina, England, Brazil, France, and even the defending champions Italy out, I wonder who might have made a successful bet on this World Cup. Unless you had bet against a team rather than for it out of hate and was ready to lose when everybody else is winning, then you are the only who is smiling all the way to the bank.

I am inclined to label the South Africa FIFA 2010 World Cup, first to be held on African soil, the most disappointing of all time. But no, with a little bit of flashback, I find that all the World Cups have always disappointed me. A little thinking again drives me to the realization that it disappoints all but the winning country.

If you are an African like me, we always have the least of expectations: beating the quarter finals jinx. But since 1986, when for the first time the great Roger Miller inspired Cameroon to the first African team quarters ever; our hopes have always been dashed. Even though Africans always support any African team like it was their own country, God is yet to answer our prayers. In contrast, Europeans and South Americans, with virtually every country having won or is capable of winning the World Cup, would rather an outsider from another continent win the World Cup than a neighbor. Africans subscribe to the bible teaching, ‘love thy neighbor as you would love yourself.’ And they apply it to football.

Africans love football more than any other sport but when it comes to winning the bride, we are always jilted. I wonder when football will learn to return love for love. If you want to know the extent of our love for this elusive sport, simply visit any dusty street, field or footpath, and you will be shocked at how many boys dribble the ball with spectators shouting Messi, Ronaldo, Forlan, Drogba, Etoo, Higuan, Fabiano…the list is endless. And they do it with equal zeal and skill. As if not enough, names of boys born in Africa in this football season reads like the starting lineup of a world football team. Saw on Facebook the other day a girl change her profile name to Mrs. Asamoah Giyan, the Ghanaian quarter finals qualifier hero. Let me not relate in detail how I found myself having won different color shoes in town after Brazil was bundled out of the World Cup last week.

Armed with the realization that only eight teams can make to the quarters, four can make to the semis and to produce the eventual winner others must be sent packing, I have learnt to take my disappointments with stoic calm. Not so with everyone though, four people have taken their lives in Kenya so far over the World Cup. I have also learnt that what makes football fun is the sheer nature of its unpredictability and the fact that we always take our side to be the best till some other team reminds us otherwise.

My advice to people who are/have bet on the outcome of this World Cup, default and go hiding. Never take chances with a game that itself is depended on chance. If you ask me who among Germany, Spain, Uruguay and Netherlands will lift the World Cup trophy, I will not wager even a mere answer of words. I have already learned my lessons.