Popularity
The most popular sport in Mali is football (soccer), which rose to the level of national obsession when Mali was chosen to host the 2002 African Cup of Nations. Most towns have professional or semi-professional men's clubs which play in one national (professional) league and two regional (semi professional) leagues. While a majority of clubs are based in Bamako, the most popular teams nationally are Djoliba AC, Stade Malien, and Real Bamako, all based in the capitol.
People play football widely, with formal fields in almost every town of any size, and pickup games among children common in a country with few luxuries. Informal games are often played by youths using a bundle of rags as a ball.
Read more about this topic: Football In Mali
Famous quotes containing the word popularity:
“Here also was made the novelty ‘Chestnut Bell’ which enjoyed unusual popularity during the gay nineties when every dandy jauntily wore one of the tiny bells on the lapel of his coat, and rang it whenever a story-teller offered a ‘chestnut.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“In everything from athletic ability to popularity to looks, brains, and clothes, children rank themselves against others. At this age [7 and 8], children can tell you with amazing accuracy who has the coolest clothes, who tells the biggest lies, who is the best reader, who runs the fastest, and who is the most popular boy in the third grade.”
—Stanley I. Greenspan (20th century)
“The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.”
—Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)