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Did I witness the incident all those years ago? I think anyone who tells you that would be lying. Stretching the truth, at least. No, I did not see the incident directly, nor did the Linesman.

You must understand, it was a matter of positioning. I had a plain view of the Linesman because Donabedian had just cut past me on a diagonal run.

I’m sure that it was Donabedian who had sprinted past me because he never tucked his jersey into his shorts and I could see the tail of his shirt flapping in the light breeze. Donabedian never knew it, but that’s how we marked him so easily. His shirt always flapped in the wind like a flag of attack, and we merely had to catch a glimpse to find his location. Such was Donabedian’s pace on that day that I realized that I could not catch up with him after he ran past me towards the goal — and I immediately swapped with my right-back, whose name was Hono.

Hono and I had played soccer together for so long that we did not have to shout to one another anymore to swap our markers. That is what made us so effective. I believe we averaged less than one goal per game when Hono and I shared the pitch together, because of the connection that we had. It was a close connection akin to friendship, or more, almost like between twins. For it is said in my country that twins share a common language when they are toddlers that only they understand. They babble at each other but they are communicating like adults. In many senses it was like this between Hono and I. Except it was solely on the soccer field, and our language was playing defense.

Off the field, I should add, Hono and I didn’t much care for each other. I found him to be too high-on-his-airs, always jabbering about the newspapers and politics, or citing poets.

‘I have no need for poetry,’ I’d say coldly, ‘I make it on the field.’

But Hono came from a wealthy family so he felt a need to speak poetry whenever possible. He would sometimes even utter lines of doggerel to his marker, and so try to confuse him. It did not often work. Most strikers come from poor families.

But on the field, as I said, Hono and I were like twins. If he lost his marker, I would quickly take his place. And he would do the same for me. We didn’t even need to look at each other. I am not sure if he also noticed Donabedian’s untucked jersey on the day of the Incident, but when I looked back Hono was already covering for me.

You’ll excuse me if I pause for a moment. You’re a journalist, correct? So I can assume that you care something for the human spirit? Well, there is no better place than to look at the game of soccer, and more specifically to consider the position of a defender.

We defenders use different tricks sometimes, and our success comes from a certain flexibility of mind. We do not always have dangling jerseys to guide us to our attackers. For example, there was a very tall Arab on The Grozny Destroyers — I know, in your language ‘Arab’ is a rudimentary word, but in my own we have no other. So forgive me. Anyway, this Arab had a kind of wheeze. Even when he was not running, he left his mouth open and made that wheezing sound as if there was water in his lungs.

That Arab also had the best trapping ability in the entire league. The ball could be passed to him from any angle, high, low, bouncing upwards off a divot of grass, and at any speed, and he would serenely bring it under control.

I once saw the Arab’s teammate viciously pummel a ball that had percolated out of our penalty area. It tore through the air with tremendous speed, wobbling from the impact. I ducked my head in like a turtle when I saw the sheer speed of the ball — but spin forced it to careen off target, away from the goal. That tall Arab leapt acrobatically in the air, calmly trapped the ball on his thigh, and before I knew it he had rolled the ball nimbly past me with the underside of his foot. He would have scored, too, if Hono hadn’t heard his wheezing earlier. Before he could kick the ball into the goal, Hono had already stolen it and played it safely to the sidelines.

So you see, we use different strategies to play defense. A defender must have a very strong memory to survive, and recall idiosyncrasies like wheezing, or cite poetry if it plays to his advantage. (Although, as I’ve said, I think poetry usually does not help.)

As Donabedian ran by on the day in question — I knew it was him, as I’ve explained, because of his shirt flapping the wind — Hono had stepped in to take my place, and I had switched to guard his striker, who had now slipped towards the sideline to improve his angle of attack.

That is how I saw the Linesman. He had a puzzled look on his face, and his moustache was undulating as if he was chewing something. His dark eyes seemed to lack focus and his bushy eyebrows were furrowed in concentration.  Indeed, the combination of his puzzled expression and his masticating jaws made it look like he had discovered a new tidbit within his mouth, and he was trying to determine what it was.  He did not have that dignified air that you see in some of the more controversial posters today, not at all. He looked exactly like a cow.

I can further assure you there is no way that The Linesman could have witnessed the famous incident because I prevented it. I was not the only one obstructing his vision, either, for I was tightly marking my striker (Hono’s old marker, as you may remember.) And I will even confess that I had grabbed hold of my marker’s jersey, tugging at it just slightly to impede his acceleration, which was considerable and had taken me by surprise, and I may have also been kicking at his Achilles tendon with the bottom of my cleats, as I am wont to do on occasion. There were therefore two people obstructing the Linesman’s vision, and not just one. Any incident that the Linesman may or may not have seen would have been at least impeded by our presence as my marker and I jostled for position on the field.

Can I say for certain whether I followed the exact direction of the Linesman’s gaze? No, I cannot. But if he was as good of a linesman as you suggest, and as the whole world seems to believe, then he should have been adhering to his duty and watching the potentially inflammatory situation before him, and not the goalmouth as he claims. If he had been doing so, he would have noticed my marker foul me several times within the stroke of a few seconds — he lashed out at me with his arm and even made contact with my private parts, contact which I believe was intentional and which inflicted a severe degree of pain, besides the frightening implications for my love life.

You can imagine my shock, then, when I heard the head referee blow his whistle. It was right after my marker had firmly grabbed hold of my scrotum. For those of you who have never experienced this, perhaps because you are of the female persuasion, it feels like a giant serpent has suddenly wriggled through your body, displacing organs and fluids while doing so. Needless to say, it is an unpleasant sensation.

That is why I continue to be surprised — no offended — by what the Ministry claims happened next. Immediately after the head referee blew his whistle, I turned to see the Linesman waving his flag as if he had watched the entire incident in question unfold. But my marker and I were obstructing his vision, and anyone who states otherwise makes me feel as if that serpent is writhing through my body again and again. I will not stand for it.

That Linesman didn’t see a thing. If he had seen the incident, he would have made a proper decision and no one would have died and I wouldn’t be here telling you about it, just like I told the consul before you, and the ambassador before him.

–Deji Olukotun