Dare to dream with Africa.

No matter where you are in West Africa, right now it’s football fever. In fact it’d be hard to imagine anywhere in the World that has ever loved the game as much. Whether it be in the back alleys of Burkina, the streets of Senegal or the mud flats of Mali if there’s something that can be kicked around you’ll find football and one thing’s for sure – this fever’s contagious.

The World Cup is upon us and in football scores matter, so let’s start with the numbers. 2.5 months on the road, 13 countries, 13,000km, 1,000’s of local footballers, one 1 global pandemic, a fever like no other and 1 dream – an African team to win the World Cup.

On an epic train ride through the Sahara in Mauritania the common language wasn’t even French or Arabic it was football. Amongst the colonial charm in St Louis, Senegal the first header was had as children said hello and kicked us a football. To the sandy flats and the 4 year olds of Savare, Mali sporting the big named jerseys such as Drogba and Obama the instructions were simple, for us westerners – stand between the goals. Travel further up country and we struggled on the full sized sand pitches of Timbuktu and proved that even in the place that defines the middle of nowhere – you’ll find football.

A week later and not a spare seat in town, we heard the chants to the Champions League at a petrol station in Ouahigouya, Burkina Faso. On to the golden coastlines of Ghana and we’d have gotten involved with the beach football if we weren’t preoccupied with World Cup banter. The Ghanaian’s might have laughed when we mentioned our group game against them, but when the headlines read ‘Essien Out’ it was a different story.

As the World Cup closed in through Togo and Benin the buzz was building and it was World Cup trivia that helped us negotiate our way into Nigeria after being bailed up by border officials. By the time we reached Cameroon, they were carrying the weight of not only a country but the entire African continent as West African stars like Drogba, Essien and Mikel battle with injury and South Africa left out their highest scorer of all time, McCarthy.

We’ve travelled Africa on the longest possible road to the World Cup, but Africa will forever travel with us and we’ll soon be in South Africa cheering on Australia, but it will be hard not to have a soft spot for the African teams. Just imagine that, imagine the first cup in Africa going to an African team, imagine what that would mean to a continent determined to prove itself to the world. Imagine what it would mean on the streets of Ghana, where football and religion are the two most important things in peoples lives or in every corner of Cameroon where children grow up with dreams to make it on the world stage and escape poverty by playing football like Samuel E’eto

From Morocco to Gabon we’ve seen the African people, people with great potential and this is their time to shine. They’ll tell you it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, they’ll tell you they’ve dreamed of this moment, they’ll tell you it’s Africa’s right and they’ll tell you the cup will be staying in Africa – and if the skills on the streets and in the sands are anything to go by, who are we to question that.

In Africa it’s a way of life, if there’s a piece of land whether it be dirt, grass, cement or sand – if there’s a ball there’ll be football. On the eve of the World Cup, don’t worry about South Africa being ready, in every African city for every match, anywhere with a television feed or radio reception will be jam packed. We’ve seen what it means to Africa as a whole to host such an event for the first time and amongst the excitement you can feel the importance to Africans around every corner and down every street.

We dare to dream. We can’t wait and we’re not worried about whether or not this place can host such an event, we’re worried about getting a seat in a street side bar packed out with hungry African football fans in a Rwandan village who dare to dream with us, hoping for an African victory in the final on the 11th of July.