Mauritania, Iceland, football, the opium of the people, and their mirror"

Mauritania, Iceland, football, the opium of the people, and their mirror" What context could bring these things together? Before seeking the answer, let's ask more questions first: How many know Argentina due to its foreign policy versus those who know it through Maradona and Messi? Who showed the world the magic of Brazil, Pelé or the ?government that honored him after winning three World Cup titles These questions mean a lot, but there's one thing we can agree on: football has some kind of influence. Is it positive? Negative? Significant? Limited? The answer changes depending on what happens in each footballing nation. And the decision remains in the hands of its bearer; whoever wanted football to be the opium of the people, it became so, and whoever .wanted life from it, it granted what they wanted These might seem like overly romantic statements, but they embodied reality in Mauritania after a historic appearance in the 2024 Africa Cup of Nations that ended dramatically, and embodied it years earlier with Iceland's historic journey in Euro 2016. Between them, football was a gateway for the people, a gateway for the lives of their children and teenagers, a political, psychological, and social interest, and perhaps things bigger than the mind can .comprehend "Mauritania to the world" Mauritanian players embraced each other after their victory over Algeria. It was an epic scene, players shedding tears in each other's arms after leading their national team, Mauritania, to victory over Algeria and securing a spot in the Round of 16 in the 2024 African Cup of Nations in Ivory Coast. During the post-match analysis on beIN Sports network, Mauritanian analyst Mohammed El Aloui was also seen shedding tears passionately, in a .moment that transcended many people's expectations of football We went to Mauritania to understand why there were all these tears and emotions, through El Aloui, the analyst on the beIN Sports network, and an ambassador of his generation's .dreams from Nouakchott and its outskirts to the "Covirtchiano" district In the school of wisdom and knowledge in Italian football, which produced geniuses of the game, and the young journalist Danin Al Bashir, who was given opportunities like those, a window into life through football. Both of them completed the missing parts for us, about .Mauritania's journey from chaos to the paved road towards the lights of African football Danin talks about life in Mauritania before 2011, from the perspective of football of course, saying that football in the country during this period was experiencing a nadir, with stadiums closer to abandoned graves, and players the most marginalized segments of society, while the media talks about successive withdrawals instead of participations, and the Football Federation is on the verge of bankruptcy. From his point of view, discussing the development ".of football in Mauritania at that time was "the joke of the century Meanwhile, Mohamed Alawi describes the scene as so dark that the electricity company cut off power to the federation's headquarters due to late payment of the bill, and the league situation was dismal, consisting of only nine teams, in empty silent stadiums, and the

national team was legally suspended by the African Union for withdrawing from the .qualifiers, facing a four-year exclusion penalty While Mauritania was globally ranked by FIFA at 203 out of 206 national teams in 2011, a young man named Ahmed Ould Yahya emerged, clinging to the hope that Mauritanians initially thought was "false hope," according to Alawi's description, to the extent that he was .dubbed crazy when he spoke of his desire to repair what life had ruined Ahmed Ould Yahya ran for the presidency of the Mauritanian Football Federation, and he won the seat indeed. During his success speech, he uttered a sentence that remained in everyone's minds: "The stagnation plaguing Mauritanian football is not an inevitable fate for us to surrender to, but rather a disease in need of treatment." According to Alawi's description, this young man found the cure after football in the country had completely .stopped National Project Some might be surprised by the seriousness of discussing football with terms like hope, reform, illness, and treatment in a country that undoubtedly suffers from bigger problems. However, because football is a soft power and a popular game, it can sometimes be seen from that serious perspective. Ould Yahya thought of turning football into a national project .overseen by the state, making the beautiful game Mauritania's window to the world Al Bashir confirms that the man's plan focused on convincing the state of the game's importance in youth circles and its implications for the future. This resulted in government contributions to developing infrastructure, sports medicine, and establishing a channel to broadcast the national league after sources for following the game or even results were nonexistent. This led to an interest in organizing league tournaments for all age groups, after it used to be managed randomly. He then brought in the best lecturers to conduct courses for local sports coaches who lacked knowledge, organizing the first-ever coaching and refereeing courses in Mauritania, and helped many young people seeking knowledge to access it, including Alawi, who became an example of the project's feasibility and its impact .on individuals, not just clubs and the national team The curve has been ascending, coaches are available, knowledge and its means are available, and there is now a game governed by a system and a plan. Within 8 years, Mauritania succeeded in achieving its most important accomplishment in history by qualifying for the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. Ahmed Ould Yahya won the award for the best administrator in the continent, while the Mourabitounes were crowned as the best national team by the African Union. Al Bashir says that qualifying for the tournament three consecutive times resulted in that third historic participation in 2024, which was prepared for by contracting with a coach who made history with the Comoros Islands in the 2021 edition and had a good background in the local league due to his interaction with Mauritanian culture, as he coached the club of Nouadhibou alongside the Comorian national team. The final step was convincing players of Mauritanian descent with dual nationality to wear their homeland's shirt, with the most prominent being striker Abu Bakari Kuyateh who is .competing for the top scorer in the Belgian league with 11 goals

This project produced a national team that made millions of hearts happy, longing for joy, as described by Alawi, saying: "It has become clear that football is the only thing capable of stirring the emotions of the people and uniting them absolutely. We discovered this recently. Our lives have become better with the improvement of the national team's results. On the historic night of qualifying for the second round, four million Mauritanians lived a new life, celebrating together despite their different colors. Despite the adventure ending with a dramatic loss to Cape Verde in the round of 16, Mauritanians feel proud of their national team's performance and look forward to better performances in future tournaments." In fact, Mauritania reminds us of what happened 8 years ago, but this time in Europe, where Iceland .was the hero of another story The Icelandic Experience Just a few years ago, there were only about 334,000 people inhabiting a group of small islands known to the world as "Iceland," and hardly a sound was heard from them on any corner of the globe. Then came Euro 2016, and the applause of their fans reverberated to the beat of drumming across the world, as they painted with their waving hands a canvas as beautiful as anything Da Vinci created. They crafted with their voices creations equivalent to Beethoven's masterpieces. Sound and image did not merely create, but they formed a vibrant painting with their mixture in the stands, on the green grass, swirling around players .and a ball that proved its ability to make a difference in the world After their exceptional journey in Euro 2016, eliminating England in the round of 16 and qualifying for the quarter-finals, the world learned the story of the small island that had lived 16 years of football obsession. It was an adventure that began with a noble goal: to rescue teenagers from alcohol and drug addiction and to save the country's streets from becoming .criminal hotspots Just two years before the turn of the century, Iceland's streets were more dangerous than Chicago's, according to government statistics. The rate of alcohol addiction among teenagers was 40%, and drug addiction stood at 23%. And of course, we don't need to .mention traditional cigarette smoking rates after those alarming statistics The government realized the danger and initiated the "Iceland without Drugs" program, later renamed "Youth in Iceland." It recognized that the problem might not lie solely in the drugs themselves but rather in the underlying causes leading to their use and addiction. Thus, the .idea was born !Football... Discipline and Reform Are teenagers addicted? Well, don't treat them as criminals, but listen to them, simply put? Yes, as you read, the government began preparing a questionnaire for teenagers, asking them questions such as: Have you ever tried smoking? When was the last time you drank alcohol? Do you engage in recreational activities? How many hours do you spend with your .parents? After tallying the answers, a long-term recovery plan was put in place Control measures were implemented by imposing a curfew for teenagers after 10 p.m. and prohibiting the sale of alcohol to those under 20 years old. But would they punish these poor

souls and label them for their addiction during withdrawal? Or would they lend them a helping hand? They chose the latter, knowing well that the former would lead to much .harsher relapses Between 1998 and 2017, the rate of teenage alcohol addiction plummeted from 40% to just 5%, alongside a staggering increase in the number of sports enthusiasts. The government then conducted a random survey to determine children's interests in music and sports. They were then taken from schools to sports and artistic venues to express themselves, each in their own field. Parents were encouraged to attend, support, and take an interest in their children's activities. A grant of €300 was announced for every family where a child, aged 6 to 16, engaged in sports professionally, allowing them to find something they love and discover themselves, to touch the feelings of their parents and peers through play, initiative, stories, .and life, instead of repression and emptiness that led them to drugs and alcohol The result? Between 1998 and 2017, the percentage of teenage alcohol addiction dropped from 40% to just 5%, alongside a remarkable increase in the number of sports enthusiasts. The government, in collaboration with the European Union, then established another national project to convert all grassy areas into football fields to accommodate the youth .fleeing addiction and embarking on life The increase in the number of football players made them in need of coaches, and while the country did not have professional coaches, a program was immediately launched by the Football Association with the help of some investors to support local coaches. Thanks to this program, most of them traveled to England for accredited training courses from the European Union, turning Iceland into one of the countries with the highest number of certified coaches: more than 560 coaches hold the B license, and over 165 coaches hold the A license, which allows them to coach youth teams and first teams at the European level, an exceptional ratio for a country with barely 300,000 inhabitants. Iceland now has one certified coach for every 825 inhabitants, compared to one certified coach for every 11,000 .inhabitants in England, the home of the Premier League A big leap in aluminum and nickel prices following Western sanctions on Russia ?Is it the opium of the people or their mirror We now return to the starting point, where football and its impact, as manifested in tournaments like the World Cup, are followed by about a third of the planet's population. This soft power is not to be underestimated; you can exploit it as a tool to achieve what you want. But in the end, it is just a tool, one that can flourish nations or become their opium, .depending on the mood of those who control it Some use it to cover up crimes, as the military dictatorship did in Argentina, while others use it to stop crime, as happened in Iceland. Some ignore it with empty chatter, while others make it a window of knowledge, as happened in Mauritania. There is corruption, ignorance, corruption, and ignorance in many places, and there is Ahmed Ould Yahya in Mauritania and thousands of teenagers in Iceland led by football to recover from addiction. Stories like these .and others will never end And because life requires the continuation of such projects in an ascending trajectory, Mohamed Alawi concludes his conversation by confirming the gradual

improvement of the Mauritanian league, although it needs a bigger leap, especially in terms of training. He emphasizes the necessity of improvement in training paths, especially for coaches, as well as the need for greater development in infrastructure, which is the .responsibility of the state Looking at the Nouadhibou club as a distinctive example, the club that Ould Yahya established simultaneously with his presidency of the national football association, after reaching the Champions League for the first time in its history and reinforcing the ranks of the national team with more than one player, we can anticipate what Mauritanian football needs in the coming years. It needs businessmen willing to take risks, to strengthen the culture of investment in the game and to exploit the state of readiness where a father is now ready to send his son to a , football academy with all his passion, after it was madness in the past, as described by Mohammedi Alawi concluding his speech. On the same note, Denin Al Bashir also concluded his speech by confirming the need for more academies to produce more .professionals It is worth mentioning that the story of Iceland's transformation from crime to recovery was not narrated by a writer or a novelist but rather painted by the famous cheers of the crowd in Euro 2016, and it was painted in Mauritania by the tears of Alawi and Al Bashir and by 4 million citizens searching for genuine happiness. This is what made the two stories more than just qualifying for the round of 16 or the quarter-finals in a continental tournament. Thus, the two stories made football more than just a game, a reality rather than a romantic ?slogan. Now you can answer, is it the opium of the people or their mirror