Chapter 52 - Chapter 52: Ninety Minutes

I barely slept.

Tonight is the night my life-long goal might finally get filled. I've only dreamt of winning Africa since I learnt what it was. Any kid who pulls on a pair of boots thinks about this moment, but only a few of them ever live it.

The biggest thing I will ever do can happen tonight, and I can't help thinking about what brought me here.

My father made ends meet so that my football never got cut — registration fees at the start of every season, boots when my feet grew out of the last pair, taxi fare to away fixtures every single weekend, all of it out of hours he didn't have to spare. I was spotted at sixteen at a provincial tournament, and nobody gets spotted out of my town. Standerton is maize and coal and a brown river, and it has never produced a footballer. The academy place that came with being seen. The digs, and the matric they made me finish at a school the club picked. The term I was dropped from the academy squad for failing two subjects, when they came very close to putting me on a taxi back to Sakhile for good.

My best friend, who I met when I was seven and hated until I was twenty-two. The Diski Challenge final, the weekend we put our hostility down and worked out we had more in common than we had against each other.

The night I signed my first professional contract and the phone call I made to Thobs, who screamed down the line at me for a full minute without stopping.