WindyCOYS
The Fighting Cock
Emmanuel Adebayor is thinking back to when life was less complicated. He is reminiscing about innocent times in his childhood in Togo, about playing football barefoot on sandy pitches a few miles from the Kodjoviakopé border crossing into Ghana, a route synonymous with drug-trafficking. “I was born in Kodjoviakopé,” the Tottenham Hotspur forward says. “It’s not one of the best cities in Africa. They’ve got everything there: gangsters, drugs, people drinking all day, people smoking weed. I played football there because it was the only thing to do. Just playing there, five against five, just playing for fun. And thank God I’m the lucky one to be where I am today.
“People there would call me Baby Kanu because they said I looked like him [the Portsmouth and former Nigeria forward] and that we dribbled alike, walked alike, everything. I’m very lucky I got to be a professional and got to live the dream.”
Adebayor says that while people recognised his talent as a youngster, his gifts were not unique among his peer group.
“I used to ask myself: ‘How did I get in front of those people?’ I don’t know what happened,” he said. “God put this in front of me. I was in the right place at the right time. I was playing in a tournament where the national under-15 team manager was passing by and he decided to watch the game. I was invited to try with the national team and from there, my star starts to shine.”
Sitting down for an interview in the children’s ward at Barnet Hospital in Hertfordshire, one of five hospitals the Tottenham players have visited in the build-up to Christmas, Adebayor talks of having the best job in the world.
“I know, just from being here today at the hospital, how lucky I am,” he said. “I keep telling myself: ‘Adebayor, you are very lucky. Ten years ago you were playing football with a shoe. Thirteen years ago you didn’t even have a school uniform. Now you have everything you want. Not only that, but people call you to tell you they want to dress you and they pay you on top of that.’ I am very lucky.”
Lucky? Well, yes, in some respects. But that depends on how you define good fortune. He was lucky enough to emerge alive from the bus that was ambushed by terrorists in Angola before the Africa Cup of Nations in January 2010, but how lucky does a man feel when he has seen three of his fellow passengers killed — including Stanislas Ocloo, his PA and the national team’s media officer, who died in his arms — and a team-mate left disabled by the bullet wounds?
“All my team-mates knew I had a good relationship with the president of our country and all the big authorities, the generals and everyone, and when they [the terrorists] were shooting at the bus, they were shouting: ‘Emmanuel, Emmanuel, what should we do?’ ” he recalls. “I said: ‘We’re in Angola, they’re shooting at us, there’s nothing we can do. We just have to keep quiet and hopefully no one will get hurt.’
“But unfortunately people died on that bus. We saw people dying in front of us. My PA, who worked with the national team, died in my arms. To see someone closing their eyes, as if they were sleeping in my arms, that was the worst thing ever for me. And at the end of the day, that person is gone.”
When some Woolwich supporters, embittered by his departure to Manchester City and his subsequent loan move to Tottenham, chanted at Adebayor this season that “it should have been you”, what did he think? He was hurt, certainly, because it mocked a tragedy that has caused him and his country untold grief. But that same dark thought has crossed his mind repeatedly — that it could have been him.
“After something like that you just tell yourself that every single minute could be the end of your whole life,” he says. “Every single moment of our lives, we are living and then [he clicks his fingers], you’re gone. You’re not there any more. Adebayor is finished. Goodbye. People would wear an armband for what? One game? Then maybe if they are talking in ten years they would show one of your goals. ‘Oh, Adebayor, that guy was great. But he’s not around any more.’ ”
Adebayor feels blessed but possibly, although he does not say so, cursed at the same time. He has enjoyed triumphs, but those successes have brought him to tragedy. He enjoyed the adoration of Woolwich’s supporters, but that only made things more painful when the relationship deteriorated and particularly after his departure. He has gone from rags to riches, becoming one of Africa’s wealthiest sportsmen, but, he admits for the first time, his success and its trappings have taken a heavy toll on his family life.
“I have a little bit of an issue — or a big issue — with my family,” he says. “When I saw my family, I mean my mum, my brothers and sisters. African families, when you become successful, they want everything. They say, ‘I want this car, I want this house,’ which is impossible. So you say to your family, ‘Listen, I can give you money, that’s not the problem, but I can’t be giving it to you as if I was 15 again.’ Because now I’ve grown up, I’ve got a family, I’ve got a house, I have to pay for my electricity, my mortgage, everything.
“That’s where it went wrong. They didn’t get it. In my family, no one is working. They are waiting for me to give them money to spend. I told them that this life can’t keep going on like this. You have to do something to get money.”
It sounds heartless, but there is clearly more to it than he is letting on. Adebayor certainly has a caring, compassionate side. A few years ago he had a house built in Togo, which he hoped one day to retire to, but on reflection he decided to hand the property over to one of the country’s largest orphanages. His charitable foundation, which employs many of his childhood friends, has financed the construction of schools and two new hospitals as well as helping out orphans, the disabled and some of those affected or bereaved by the ambush in Angola.
Adebayor is an endlessly fascinating person, but the same can be said of him as a footballer. At his rampaging, bludgeoning best, as in the 2007-08 season at Woolwich, his first few weeks at City, his spell on loan to Real Madrid or his form so far for Tottenham Hotspur, he can look unplayable. At other times, as in his unhappy final season at Woolwich or last season at City, he can look listless and uninterested.
Not only does Adebayor recognise the contrast, he discusses it at length. “When you have the feeling that the team wants you out or the manager wants you out, things feel different,” he says. “Where you’re supposed to run, you don’t run any more. Where you’re supposed to chase back, you don’t chase back any more. Everything you are doing is the opposite to what people like.
“And why? That’s not being lazy. That’s being frustrated in your head. And when you have 60,000 people at your own home booing you, like I had at Woolwich, trust me you don’t want to run for anybody.
“It’s like today, people are saying [Fernando] Torres is lazy. He’s not lazy. He’s doing the best he can, but before he goes on to the pitch people are saying he’s lazy or he’s tired or ‘get rid of Torres’. It’s not easy to do your best when you hear these things.
“Also there’s [Didier] Drogba. Today I’m pleased for Drogba. He’s doing great. But his red card two months ago? Drogba would never tackle like that before. How and why did the Drogba I know tackle like that? Because something was wrong in his head. People are saying all this — Torres-Drogba-Torres-Drogba — and it gets to you. He went to do something he’s not supposed to — and it’s all out of frustration.
“What I’m trying to say is that when you don’t feel confidence, it’s hard. Sometimes I would wake up in the morning, I’m going to Manchester City, I drive, I’m on time, I reach there, I see the building and ... Oh my God. Frustration comes again. I have huge respect for the fans there and normally I’m a happy guy, but when you’re not happy and you don’t feel confidence and support, it’s difficult to deal with.
“But you know? Football is strange. I was at Manchester City and I wasn’t playing, not even getting in the squad of 18 players, then I find myself at Real Madrid, one of the greatest clubs in the world, scoring in the Champions League, winning the Copa del Rey. Can you imagine?
“I have a wonderful six months there, then I go back to Manchester City and find myself training not with the reserves but with the under-15s. No, really. My first two weeks back for pre-season were with the under-15s at Manchester City.”
Asked to offer a theory on why Roberto Mancini treated him like that, Adebayor is for once evasive, saying it’s “difficult to explain”.
Adebayor is a Tottenham player now, until the end of the season at least. He is scoring goals, he feels wanted and he loves it. After all those concerns that his Woolwich connections would antagonise the supporters at White Hart Lane, he has ended up feeling blissfully happy.
“The fans really believe in me,” he says. “If I miss two or three chances, they still sing my name. That is so positive for me. I owe them big time and that means I have to do something for them.”
He will go wherever his journey takes him. So far that has been from the sandy fields of Kodjoviaokopé to Metz to Monaco to Woolwich to City to Real to Tottenham. It has been an extraordinary journey, and there has been sadness, at losing friends, at drifting away from his family, at the abuse he has endured. But when he thinks about where he has come from, he knows that he is the lucky one.
“People there would call me Baby Kanu because they said I looked like him [the Portsmouth and former Nigeria forward] and that we dribbled alike, walked alike, everything. I’m very lucky I got to be a professional and got to live the dream.”
Adebayor says that while people recognised his talent as a youngster, his gifts were not unique among his peer group.
“I used to ask myself: ‘How did I get in front of those people?’ I don’t know what happened,” he said. “God put this in front of me. I was in the right place at the right time. I was playing in a tournament where the national under-15 team manager was passing by and he decided to watch the game. I was invited to try with the national team and from there, my star starts to shine.”
Sitting down for an interview in the children’s ward at Barnet Hospital in Hertfordshire, one of five hospitals the Tottenham players have visited in the build-up to Christmas, Adebayor talks of having the best job in the world.
“I know, just from being here today at the hospital, how lucky I am,” he said. “I keep telling myself: ‘Adebayor, you are very lucky. Ten years ago you were playing football with a shoe. Thirteen years ago you didn’t even have a school uniform. Now you have everything you want. Not only that, but people call you to tell you they want to dress you and they pay you on top of that.’ I am very lucky.”
Lucky? Well, yes, in some respects. But that depends on how you define good fortune. He was lucky enough to emerge alive from the bus that was ambushed by terrorists in Angola before the Africa Cup of Nations in January 2010, but how lucky does a man feel when he has seen three of his fellow passengers killed — including Stanislas Ocloo, his PA and the national team’s media officer, who died in his arms — and a team-mate left disabled by the bullet wounds?
“All my team-mates knew I had a good relationship with the president of our country and all the big authorities, the generals and everyone, and when they [the terrorists] were shooting at the bus, they were shouting: ‘Emmanuel, Emmanuel, what should we do?’ ” he recalls. “I said: ‘We’re in Angola, they’re shooting at us, there’s nothing we can do. We just have to keep quiet and hopefully no one will get hurt.’
“But unfortunately people died on that bus. We saw people dying in front of us. My PA, who worked with the national team, died in my arms. To see someone closing their eyes, as if they were sleeping in my arms, that was the worst thing ever for me. And at the end of the day, that person is gone.”
When some Woolwich supporters, embittered by his departure to Manchester City and his subsequent loan move to Tottenham, chanted at Adebayor this season that “it should have been you”, what did he think? He was hurt, certainly, because it mocked a tragedy that has caused him and his country untold grief. But that same dark thought has crossed his mind repeatedly — that it could have been him.
“After something like that you just tell yourself that every single minute could be the end of your whole life,” he says. “Every single moment of our lives, we are living and then [he clicks his fingers], you’re gone. You’re not there any more. Adebayor is finished. Goodbye. People would wear an armband for what? One game? Then maybe if they are talking in ten years they would show one of your goals. ‘Oh, Adebayor, that guy was great. But he’s not around any more.’ ”
Adebayor feels blessed but possibly, although he does not say so, cursed at the same time. He has enjoyed triumphs, but those successes have brought him to tragedy. He enjoyed the adoration of Woolwich’s supporters, but that only made things more painful when the relationship deteriorated and particularly after his departure. He has gone from rags to riches, becoming one of Africa’s wealthiest sportsmen, but, he admits for the first time, his success and its trappings have taken a heavy toll on his family life.
“I have a little bit of an issue — or a big issue — with my family,” he says. “When I saw my family, I mean my mum, my brothers and sisters. African families, when you become successful, they want everything. They say, ‘I want this car, I want this house,’ which is impossible. So you say to your family, ‘Listen, I can give you money, that’s not the problem, but I can’t be giving it to you as if I was 15 again.’ Because now I’ve grown up, I’ve got a family, I’ve got a house, I have to pay for my electricity, my mortgage, everything.
“That’s where it went wrong. They didn’t get it. In my family, no one is working. They are waiting for me to give them money to spend. I told them that this life can’t keep going on like this. You have to do something to get money.”
It sounds heartless, but there is clearly more to it than he is letting on. Adebayor certainly has a caring, compassionate side. A few years ago he had a house built in Togo, which he hoped one day to retire to, but on reflection he decided to hand the property over to one of the country’s largest orphanages. His charitable foundation, which employs many of his childhood friends, has financed the construction of schools and two new hospitals as well as helping out orphans, the disabled and some of those affected or bereaved by the ambush in Angola.
Adebayor is an endlessly fascinating person, but the same can be said of him as a footballer. At his rampaging, bludgeoning best, as in the 2007-08 season at Woolwich, his first few weeks at City, his spell on loan to Real Madrid or his form so far for Tottenham Hotspur, he can look unplayable. At other times, as in his unhappy final season at Woolwich or last season at City, he can look listless and uninterested.
Not only does Adebayor recognise the contrast, he discusses it at length. “When you have the feeling that the team wants you out or the manager wants you out, things feel different,” he says. “Where you’re supposed to run, you don’t run any more. Where you’re supposed to chase back, you don’t chase back any more. Everything you are doing is the opposite to what people like.
“And why? That’s not being lazy. That’s being frustrated in your head. And when you have 60,000 people at your own home booing you, like I had at Woolwich, trust me you don’t want to run for anybody.
“It’s like today, people are saying [Fernando] Torres is lazy. He’s not lazy. He’s doing the best he can, but before he goes on to the pitch people are saying he’s lazy or he’s tired or ‘get rid of Torres’. It’s not easy to do your best when you hear these things.
“Also there’s [Didier] Drogba. Today I’m pleased for Drogba. He’s doing great. But his red card two months ago? Drogba would never tackle like that before. How and why did the Drogba I know tackle like that? Because something was wrong in his head. People are saying all this — Torres-Drogba-Torres-Drogba — and it gets to you. He went to do something he’s not supposed to — and it’s all out of frustration.
“What I’m trying to say is that when you don’t feel confidence, it’s hard. Sometimes I would wake up in the morning, I’m going to Manchester City, I drive, I’m on time, I reach there, I see the building and ... Oh my God. Frustration comes again. I have huge respect for the fans there and normally I’m a happy guy, but when you’re not happy and you don’t feel confidence and support, it’s difficult to deal with.
“But you know? Football is strange. I was at Manchester City and I wasn’t playing, not even getting in the squad of 18 players, then I find myself at Real Madrid, one of the greatest clubs in the world, scoring in the Champions League, winning the Copa del Rey. Can you imagine?
“I have a wonderful six months there, then I go back to Manchester City and find myself training not with the reserves but with the under-15s. No, really. My first two weeks back for pre-season were with the under-15s at Manchester City.”
Asked to offer a theory on why Roberto Mancini treated him like that, Adebayor is for once evasive, saying it’s “difficult to explain”.
Adebayor is a Tottenham player now, until the end of the season at least. He is scoring goals, he feels wanted and he loves it. After all those concerns that his Woolwich connections would antagonise the supporters at White Hart Lane, he has ended up feeling blissfully happy.
“The fans really believe in me,” he says. “If I miss two or three chances, they still sing my name. That is so positive for me. I owe them big time and that means I have to do something for them.”
He will go wherever his journey takes him. So far that has been from the sandy fields of Kodjoviaokopé to Metz to Monaco to Woolwich to City to Real to Tottenham. It has been an extraordinary journey, and there has been sadness, at losing friends, at drifting away from his family, at the abuse he has endured. But when he thinks about where he has come from, he knows that he is the lucky one.
:ade: :wub: