Former Sudanese Ambassador to Cairo Abd al-Mahmoud Abd al-Halim writes:

The lights were faintly coming out of the windows of distant houses along the road from Douala to Yaoundé, as if sleepiness had overtaken them... The passengers surrendered to the ordeal and hardship of the road, and slowly their voices of conversations and laughter lowered and weakness crept in... Flashes of lightning seeped their light into the bus, reflecting on the tired faces inside, and the sound of thunder, as the rain suddenly poured without permission... Only "Germain" remained silent since the beginning of the journey, showing signs of anxiety and preoccupation while continuing to stare out the window as if she knew it was the last time she would take that road and would never return to it... On the third day after arriving in Yaoundé, "Germain" and her two sons were in the departure lounge at the airport waiting for a different kind of journey to Paris after arranging for immigration there... In his novel "Cruel City" the Cameroonian writer and novelist Mongo Beti recounts the story of the young man Banda who wished to fulfill his mother's dream that he marry the girl of her dreams in her lifetime; before she passed away, he would travel to the city to sell the season's cocoa harvest to raise the financial resources needed for his marriage, but luck eluded him and he failed in his mission... Will "Germain's" departure to France have the same fate as she looks forward to a new life with her two sons especially after separating from her husband and relying on herself to provide the means of life for the family... The plane took off to Paris... The sound of the engines for Germain began like farewell chants to a harsh city, and the plane's vibrations with the air pockets cut off the thread of her thoughts and contemplation of the shape of coming days whose features were not yet clear before the big city swallowed her after hours signaling the start of a new life there... Most people who can change the shape of our lives we have not yet met... Germain meets a Swiss man in France who admires her and marries her then eventually moves with her to Switzerland... Her son "Breel" found the opportunity to satisfy his passion for football, drew attention to his talent, and reaped not the cocoa fruits that disappointed "Banda" in "Cruel City" but the admiration of many followers since he joined Nordstern club then Basel club which honed his talents and played with them under a professional contract for 91 matches scoring 31 goals, then for two years he played with Schalke and Borussia Mönchengladbach in Germany between 2019 and 2022 before currently joining the French Monaco where he performs well... Breel Embolo, since gaining Swiss citizenship in 2014, has been a shining star for their national team with which he played 59 international matches including the European Championship and the 2018 Russia World Cup... Embolo says that the choice between playing for the Swiss national team or his home country Cameroon was a difficult and harsh matter, and there were family members supporting this and that as well... He said that when he was contacted to play for the Cameroon national team, it took him six months to decide to play for the Swiss national team, and that must have angered many... But the truly frightening thing was the presence of Cameroon and Switzerland together in Group G of the Qatar World Cup along with Brazil and Serbia, and indeed his scoring the only winning goal for Switzerland against Cameroon, benefiting from Shaqiri’s cross pass to send it into Onana’s goal... But he refused to celebrate the goal and millions around the world and in the Al Janoub Stadium in Al Wakrah watched him sad, although he said before the match that football is a sport of emotions, and if he celebrates, it will not be against his motherland but because he wants to win... He had also stated that his love for his country runs in his blood and that his family lives there and that he frequently traveled to Yaoundé and Douala and wishes to give back to his homeland through an organization he established for charitable and social work... News agencies showed images of an angry crowd they said attempted to storm Breel Embolo's house in Yaoundé in protest and rejection of his scoring the winning goal against his home country... Clearly, this controversy will continue between critics and admirers since just as football has globalized player transfers, feelings have also globalized as more than a hundred players in the Qatar World Cup play for clubs and countries other than those in which they were born... Shaqiri, who assisted Embolo's goal, his family fled the conflicts in Kosovo, and Ghodous, a star of the Iran national team, was born in Sweden, and in Senegal many hold French citizenship such as goalkeeper Edouard Mendy, defender Abdou Camara, and Ecuadorian goalkeeper of Argentine descent while there is a German in Wales’ squad and an American with Japan and others... And they say that the new nationality is achieving excellence and stardom and that entails loyalty to the colors of the teams they play for... On the other hand, the obvious view is that nothing compares to the homeland... While Cameroonian novelist Mongo Beti refers to the colonial legacy and capitalist culture as reasons for Africans' disappointments, Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe advises against romanticizing pre-colonial Africa’s conditions... Between the lamentation of Ecuadorians, tears of Suárez, fainting of Koreans, and weeping of Neymar and the blood and tears poured on the green fields, the Qatari edition of the global competition for players and spectators alike was another arena and a season for an outpouring of nationalistic emotions and love of homelands...