Olympic voyage ignites Da Gama’s dreams

At the age of 54, South Africa coach Owen da Gama is right to consider himself a well-travelled person. Thanks to football and his keen eye for goal, he built up an impressive collection of passport stamps in his playing days. “I’ve already been around the world. I played for Beerschot in Belgium, for Figueres in Spain, when they were in the first division, and I played in Ireland too, for Derry City, where I won the player of the year award. I didn’t play in the top leagues but I made a habit of scoring my goals,” he told FIFA.com in the bowels of the Maracana, following the draw for the group phase of the Men’s Olympic Football Tournament Rio 2016.

That trip was just the latest of many made by an intrepid South African who inherited his pioneering spirit from his forebears. One of them just happens to be the Portuguese navigator and explorer with whom he shares his surname and who, in 1497, became the first European to lead a fleet of ships from the old continent to India.

In doing so Vasco da Gama rounded the southernmost tip of Africa to found the Cape Route, which transformed the way the world did trade at the time. It was a landmark achievement that would ultimately lead to the discovery of the country that is now preparing to host the Olympic Games, a discovery that came about in 1500, when Pedro Alvares Cabral sought to follow Da Gama’s route round Africa to India, but sailed off course and stumbled instead upon Brazil.

“Yes, Da Gama, as you know, is a very important name. You only have to look at my nose to see that it’s the same as Vasco’s,” he said with a smile. “One of Vasco’s …

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