The grey cardinal from South Sudan. If it weren’t for him, there might not have been an African fairy tale at the Olympics.
Vitaly Vesely July 31, 2024, 11:00 Moscow time Audio version: Your browser does not support the audio element.
Luol Deng made millions in the NBA and is now investing generously in one of the poorest countries in the world.
The South Sudanese team has become perhaps the most talked about team at the Summer Olympics in Paris. It would seem, how is this possible? After all, the state itself appeared on the political map only in 2011. And the national team of this country played its first official match in 2017. However, the lack of experience did not bother the African basketball players at all, and just a few years after their official debut they qualified for the 2024 Games. Behind the success of South Sudan, in addition to the players and the coach, there is another person whose contribution to the prosperity of the national team is difficult to overestimate. This will be discussed in the article “Championship”.
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But first, let’s recall how this African country is now on everyone’s lips. When South Sudan qualified for the Olympics for the first time in its history, many noticed this event, but did not attach much importance to it, and immediately wrote off the team as outsiders of the tournament. Not everyone believed that a team without world-class stars would be able to give anyone a run for their money. And in vain. After all, someone has already paid for it. First, the South Sudanese almost punished the American team in a friendly match, losing to them by just one point. And then we won at the start of the Olympics, taking the first important step towards qualifying from the group.
And all this despite the difficulties that this team went through even before the Games, and immediately after their start. When the Americans almost lost, former NBA player Gilbert Arenas, in a fit of rage, unleashed a series of xenophobic comments against the young African country: “The boys almost lost to some Africans. We almost lost to the Ahi-Ahi tribe. Madness. Embiid almost ruined everything for his cousins. We shouldn’t lose to them. They don’t even have shoes! They get their shoes from America, we have to send them to them. We almost lost to those who were throwing baskets of peaches, in the mud, without shoes.”
How that match went:
“Embarrassed!” Africa’s team nearly beat the United States and taught them a valuable lesson.
And when the Olympics began and the team was preparing for its first match, the organizers mixed up the anthem. The anthem of Sudan was played, a state from which South Sudan became independent in 2011. But all this, apparently, only provoked the newcomers. They immediately defeated the strong Puerto Rican team with a convincing difference of 11 points, which could play a decisive role in the continuation of the fight in the tournament.
But in fact, the difficulties listed might have been the least of all the country’s hardships if it weren’t for Luol Deng. The former NBA player now works as the president of the South Sudan Basketball Federation and does everything he can to ensure that the players don’t need him.
“We don’t have the luxury of going to a gym and we don’t have hostels or other facilities. We had a tough training camp in Rwanda and then we went to Spain. They were moving around a lot, taking long flights and giving up exit seats to their seven-foot players. These are the things that a lot of people don’t talk about. No one realizes that our flight was delayed for seven hours while we were in Chad. Luol Deng has been funding this team out of his own pocket for four years. He pays for gyms, hotels, plane tickets, everything. Big thanks to Luol and the staff. We couldn’t have put this team together without them,” South Sudan head coach Royal Ivey told Basket News.
Luol Deng at Buckingham Palace, 2022
Photo: Gareth Fuller – Pool/Getty Images
South Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world and sports are financed on a residual basis. The help that is not even provided by an organization, but by an individual, is worth a lot. According to specialist sources, Deng earned 166 million dollars during his NBA career, a huge fortune that he now uses generously for the benefit of his homeland. At the same time, in addition to economic difficulties, Luol had difficulties of another kind. Some South Sudanese players have dual citizenship and some have lived abroad due to the country’s civil war. The federation was faced with the task of uniting all these basketball players to form a combat-ready team.
The result gives every reason to say that Deng can be proud of himself. The team took the first step towards qualifying from the group. This is unlikely to happen after the meeting with the US team, which will probably be much more serious after the recent friendly match. But even if they lose, the fairy tale of Olympic debutants will continue. And not otherwise, given the attitude of the coach: “We are pioneers and we will continue in the same spirit. We will see what happens in the next two matches, but the plan is to have a lot of fun. My life is a movie. Chapter 42. The work continues.”
