Football was the winner on the day

"The Rwandans held on for a 1-0 victory. Back home they went bonkers. Never had the country erupted with such joy: certainly not, at any rate, since 1994, when Hutu madmen, incited by their government, massacred 800,000 people in 100 days - a rate of killing that exceeded the industrialised slaughter by the Nazis; as many people were murdered every day before lunch as died in the World Trade Centre. And almost all of them chopped to pieces with machetes."

Yes. But the game had seemed destined to go the path of violence. In the first leg of the tie, Rwandan goalkeeper Mohammud Mossi ("a flamboyant and fully paid-up member of the gratuitously acrobatic school of goalkeeping"), made several miraculous saves that had the highly superstitious Ugandans wondering if the shot-stopper was using juju, either on his gloves, or dug into the grass behind the goal. He didn't help matters in the return leg, when he held up his gloved hands to his opponents and declared: 'I've got electric juju today. It's so strong you can't see it.' Nutter. And, naturally, after a couple of spectaucular saves early on in the game had given the crowd and players ample evidence that juju was indeed being used...

"One Ugandan player charged at Mossi and tried to tear off his gloves. Another started digging behind the Rwandan goal line with his hands, frenetically searching for the offending juju. That was it. Mayhem. The mother and father of all punch-ups. Blood-spattered shirts all round. One Ugandan player got off the bench and hit a Rwandan, Jimmy Gatete, over the head with his boot. Blood poured down Gatete's shirt from a gash on his brow. Then the police entered the fray. Not to stop the players from fighting, but to pile into the plucky Rwandans, who forgot where they were, ignored the baying crowd, and were giving as good as they got."

The game was finally restarted, with the result going the Rwandans way (Mossi's juju keeping the ball from his team's net, despite the assault).

And now, it seems, Rwandan football is healing the wounds of that violence-ravaged country...

"Only football could have had such a huge impact on the vastly ambitious national task of reconciliation, of restoring to health the world's most sad and damaged land. Football in Rwanda is joy, it is consolation, it is balm. It is, as Nelson Mandela has said, a force that mobilises the sentiments of a people in a way that nothing else can. "

This after a game that involved an all-in brawl, accusations of witch-craft and sorcery, and police brutality on a visiting national soccer squad. Things are certainly a bit different in Africa.
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