“What is your name?” I asked the smart 17-year old Zulu boy. “Jambulani,” he replied. “Jambulani?” I was a little confused. Hitherto, I knew only about the official match ball of the 2010 World Cup named by the sporting outfit, Adidas as Jambulani. “What does it mean?” I asked the young man again. “Rejoice,” he replied confidently.
Amaechi meets with APC govs at NGF
The Jambulani match ball of the 2010 World Cup was nothing to rejoice about! The world’s most technologically enhanced football ever created was a heartache for the footballers. Nearly all the players complained about it. The goal-keepers were not happy with it.
They complained that the ball seemed to go out of view as it came nearer their outstretched hands. It was not just the goal keeper that was unhappy about it! It succeeded in making fools out of professionals. Many of them could just not find the net.
Can you imagine the big names in soccer kicking the ball miles off target when left with the goal keeper alone? They all blamed it on Jambulani! Why did the ball behave that way? Hardly did anyone score a free kick like our Okocha during the tournament. It was frustrating for me watching those terrible misses and definitely more frustrating for the players.
To understand the reason why Jambulani was difficult to handle for the goal keeper, you have to understand two eye events. The first is called saccadic eye movement.
A saccade is a fast movement of an eye and saccades are quick, simultaneous movements of both eyes in the same direction so that small parts of a scene can be sensed with greater resolution. They are the fastest movements produced by the human body and the angular speed of the eye can reach about 1000°/sec.
The second event is the smooth pursuit movement of the eye. The eyes move smoothly instead of in jumps. They are called “pursuit” because this type of eye movement is made when the eyes follow an object.
So, when the jambulani is approaching, the goalkeeper is able to keep track of the ball and make appropriate response to catch it or push it away depending on his better judgement. A breakdown in either of these two phenomena owing to fatigue, a momentary loss of concentration or an involuntary blink may cause the jambulani to go out of view with disastrous consequences for the goalkeeper. A goalkeeper must therefore have a very good eye sight in addition to sharp reflexes and good goal keeping skills.
“Doctor, could it be this same lack of coordination that is the cause of my uncle’s problem?” Asked the Zulu boy. “Please, tell me a little more about your uncle,” I requested. “My cousin is about 45 years old. About two years ago, he complained that if he entered a room from the outside, it took him about a couple of minutes to be able to identify the people inside the room.
“At times when someone was approaching from the distance, he would see him but as he got nearer the face would just disappear like the goal keepers say about jambulani.”
“May I ask you a couple of questions?” “Yes sir,” he replied. “I would like to know if your uncle is diabetic or has been using any medication on a regular basis.” “I know for certain that Jambole is not a diabetic; I also know that he complains of frequent malaria attack but I wouldn’t know if he uses any medicine to prevent an attack,” he answered.
“Why don’t you call him on his mobile phone and ask right now?’ I commanded. Jambole, it turned out, had been taking, on the average, a full dose of chloroquine every month for over five years. His wife, a nurse, occasionally gave him one or two shots of chloroquine injection every now and then for perceived malaria attack.
Jambole is a legislator and lives in Abuja. I advised him to stop further use of chloroquine and see an ophthalmologist immediately. The smart young man, Jambulani, again failed his JAMB examination and he couldn’t explain why.
and then