Mohamed - The Centimetre

‘We can climb the walls of hell one centimetre at a time,’ Al Pacino said in Any Given Sunday, in one of the most famous and certainly most-quoted monologues in the history of sport in film. Mohamed Kallon really did climb those walls of hell one centimetre at a time, metaphorically speaking. But the regret of his career was not a single centimetre; it was a little more than that, perhaps twenty.

Kallon was a prodigy from a very young age. He was already playing for the senior national team at the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations, aged just 16, and as the youngest player at the tournament he scored the decisive goal in the closing stages against Burkina Faso. Yet Sierra Leone was no peaceful place to grow up in the 1990s: civil war was tearing through the country. By the time he scored that goal, Kallon was already in Switzerland, playing for Lugano. Inter had signed him a few months earlier. If Ulysses took ten years to return to Ithaca, Kallon took six before finally passing through the gates of La Pinetina: one loan spell in Switzerland and no fewer than five in Serie A, with Bologna, Genoa, Cagliari, Reggina and Vicenza. It was in Veneto that he took the next step, forming a promising strike partnership with Luca Toni and convincing Inter to bring him back to the club. It was the summer of 2001, and all the fans were wondering what Inter's attacking partnership would look like. There were three forwards everyone was certain would play: Vieri, Ronaldo and Recoba. How could they all fit into the same team? Well, in the opening games, the dilemma was solved rather neatly: Ronaldo and Recoba were unavailable, and at one point Vieri was also missing. Ventola and a certain Kallon, as he was then, took their places. After four matchdays, Inter were top, with ten points from four games. Kallon had scored four goals and was the league's leading scorer. The rest of the story is well known: Vieri, Ronaldo and Recoba returned, Kallon went back to the bench, and Inter suffered the cruellest of defeats just metres from the finish line on 5 May 2002. The following season, Kallon once again found himself, through no fault of his own, in the uncomfortable position of having to rescue Inter's season. Ronaldo was absent, with Crespo brought in as his replacement. He was injured in December and never returned to his best in the second half of the season. Vieri was dragging the team forward, scoring more goals than the number of games he played, but he was unable to feature in the May derby, with a place in the final at stake. Shevchenko put AC Milan ahead, Martins equalised with the fearlessness of someone who had nothing to lose, and then came that final chance. The ball fell to Kallon, only for Abbiati to get his body in the way, denying him a moment that could have changed his career and history. At the time of that save, there was already a team in Sierra Leone named after a footballer: Kallon Football Club, which the striker had bought in 2002. They also won the league title in 2007. Mohamed has never forgotten where he comes from and, as soon as he was able, he gave something back to his people. And, to avoid any confusion, Kallon is currently not only president but also coach of Kallon Football Club.