The Premier League Title Race the Whole World Is Watching


Mayowa Adeshina should, really, be at work. It is the middle of Sunday afternoon, and he has not yet finished his shift at the barbershop. He is here, clad in a red-and-white Arsenal jersey, only by the good grace of his boss. Well, grace is one word. Resignation is another. “I took a break for the love of the game,” Mr. Adeshina said. “The manager knows this. He’s not new to the routine.”

Many West Africans live to the rhythm of European soccer, with mostly male crowds massing outside bars, hair salons, street restaurants — any establishment, ultimately, with a screen — to watch idols playing thousands of miles away. Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris St.-Germain all have considerable followings in the region, but in Nigeria, nothing matches the appeal of the Premier League.

On game days, fans of all stripes flock to viewing centers — street venues equipped with a few screens, a jigsaw puzzle of wooden benches, a thicket of wires and a canopy to block out the sun and reduce the glare — like the one Mr. Adeshina and his friends descended on to take in his beloved Arsenal’s meeting with Tottenham Hotspur.

Mr. Adeshina became an Arsenal fan in the late 1990s, when Nigerian cable channels first began broadcasting the Premier League. His older brother instructed him on which team he should support, at a time when Nwankwo Kanu, one of Nigeria’s greatest stars, was a fixture in the team’s lineup.

If anything, though, Mr. Adeshina says his connection to the team is even deeper now. Arsenal’s academy is stacked with English prospects of Nigerian ancestry. One of the club’s brightest stars, Bukayo Saka, grew up in a Nigerian family in London. “He’s Yoruba, I’m Yoruba,” Mr. Adeshina said, in a tone rather softer than that with which he celebrated his idol’s first-half goal against Spurs.



View Original Source Here

You May Also Like

Teenage girl breaks into her grandma’s safe, steals $13,500, and shares it with her classmates

A 14-year-old girl caused a stir at a school in Florida after…

Protests follow US Supreme Court’s move to overturn abortion protection as clinics begin to close

Protests are continuing in cities and towns across America after the Supreme…

Trump to appear in court over classified documents found in his estate

Donald Trump has spent the night at his golf club in Doral…

‘We can cope’, Capitol riot prosecutors say as FBI identifies over 400 suspects

Prosecutors say they will not be overwhelmed by the number of cases…