The Football World cup of 1998 was the first time I experienced some serious international soccer as a young lad. That’s also when I learned a little practical economics on impulse buying, value of similar commodities from different brands, batter-trade…We used to buy those chewing gums that were wrapped in Soccer player stickers.
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Those stickers were the most important thing for us at time. To this day i remember many players from different countries. Inakaa ukiwa mtoto, whatever you learn is hard to unlearn well into adulthood.
Akina Davor Suker, Jayjay Okocha, Hristo Stoichkov, Ronaldo kipara, Romario, Paulo Maldini…Some players’ stickers would barter trade with those of several other players. Sticker ya Ronaldo ilikua the most expensive. Either ununue na sticker zingine tano ama ununue chewing gum ndo upewe.
For people of the same generation, do you remember these guys and did you do this ?
I’m not big on conspiracy, but whatever was given to Ronaldo to have seizures the night before the final determined the outcome. The Brazil team didn’t sleep that night and spent the morning before the final completely stunned. By game time they didn’t have the mental focus or game plan preparations adequate for the big final. Remember he was only 18 years old.
My first world cup was 1986, maradona show on black and white t.v. 1990 won by Germany and fortunate to watch in colour and 1994 Romario.
1994 was my 1st world Cup to follow keenly especially the Brazil squad which had the likes of Romario, Bebeto and goalkeeper Taffarel and of course as an African I was rooting for Nigeria and Cameroon.
I will never forget the merciless drubbing Cameroon received from the Russians despite being highly rated and included the legendary Roger Milla, Rigobert Song, Omam Biyik, and Marc Vivien Foe.
There’s this fast paced soukous song in which Roger Miller is mentioned, kuna uncle yangu anaipenda sana hadi wa leo. ukimuekea umechokora mashaitani ya mid 1990s
It was a super awesome goal. It never left my young impressionable 12 year old mind for the rest of 1998!! I’m sure Bergkamp himself doesn’t believe it to this day. Plus he scored the wonder goal 7 mins from time and it was enough to send the Dutch to the semis But Bergkamp had some above average control skills… Check this March 2002 gem… I miss him
We all have moments of madness. What matters is how he dusted himself off and redeemed himself after that. Remember he went to Korea/ Japan in 2002 as the star and captain of the team. But that night in France, England were shining. Remember the magic an 18 year old Owen had pulled earlier on…
I mostly watched the African teams.
Morocco were impressive with Mustapha Hadji and Salahedinne Bassir. They chapad Scotland 3-0 and were unlucky not to proceed.
And back then South Africa were good with Kina Radebe and Nomvete scoring that goal with his back. They were also unlucky not to proceed.
Naija were good but boy did they choke against Denmark.
Cameroon as usual disappointed. I don’t even know why they go to the world cup every four years.
Cameroon were victims of some dodgy refereeing in their game against Chile in France '98. Their legitimate goal was disallowed while two players; Song and Lauren were sent off, but they still managed a 1-1 draw. If they had won it 2-1, then they would have proceeded to the second round.
