George Weah (Monrovia, 1966) was one of the best African soccer players. In 1995 he won the Ballon d’Or while playing for Milan. Now, he could never play the final phase of a World Cup. Liberia, a country torn by a long and raw civil war, only came close to the milestone in 2002, when the Liberians reached the final day of the qualifiers with options. They needed Ghana to defeat the Nigerians in the last match but it was not to be. And Weah never reached a World Cup. It would have been historic, as Liberia was experiencing its second civil war, which would leave around 50,000 dead. The first, which ended in 1996, had left more than 200,000 dead and caused a million people to leave the country as refugees. Much of the selection was made up of young children of refugees.
George, the Liberian president
Thanks to football, George was able to buy a flat in Paris for his parents and keep them away from the war. His son Tim, on the other hand, has known a different reality. And he has made his debut in a World Cup, the big thorn that the father had stuck. And it’s already marked, in fact. Timothy Weah, born in 2000 in New York, is one of the new faces of American soccer. A young man who has always lived under the shadow of an absent father, since he stayed to live with his mother, Clar, in the United States, while George continued to play in Europe. These last few years haven’t seen much either, because George Weah was elected president of Liberia in 2017. Great hero of a whole generation of Liberians, now the former AC Milan striker is president of a country, while his son score goals with another in the World Cup. These days, however, the blood has been stronger than presidential duties and George Weah has flown to Qatar to meet his son and watch a United States match. He posted a photo with Tim on the networks. The same laugh, the same eyes. The same facility to score goals, but a different flag. In fact, Tim Weah has spoken in a few days with two presidents, as Joe Biden called the players in the United States to encourage them.
It is clear that Tim Weah could have chosen to be international with Liberia, the land of his father. But he admits that he has been there a few times. Now, he could also have played with France, where he lived for a few years when he went to the PSG Academy and where his grandparents live. But he could also have played for Jamaica because of his mother. And with the United States, obviously. This was his choice, and he did not hesitate much. “I was born here, I grew up here, I have friends here,” would say the young man, who lived in Brooklyn with Clar, waiting for a visit from a father who was clear that his children would be footballers, like him. His childhood was somewhat nomadic, however, as he grew up between Florida and New York, with his mother balancing her professional career with finding good football academies for her children. They had started at a football school owned by an uncle of the mother’s, because on the mother’s side, like good Jamaicans, they were already a lot of football. In fact, Clar explains that when she explained at home that she had met a certain “George Weah” her brothers did not believe her, that she was dating one of the best players in the world. Tim ended up at the New York Red Bull Academy first, then jumped to the Old Continent when PSG came full circle: if the father had played for them, so would the son. He would arrive in France at the age of 14, making his way to debuting in the first team, where he would score a goal, but would end up being loaned to Celtic. Now, at the age of 22, he plays for Lille and succeeds with the United States national team.
A family caught between two continents
Fate wanted the two Weahs to score goals with two different national teams, but with two almost identical flags. Liberia continues to be that dream, so beautiful, that ended up broken, of making a free and dignified country in the heart of Africa. When the United States was a young independent nation, one of the great debates was slavery. While many people defended it, others felt it was fair that the descendants of African slaves could make the return journey to the land of their ancestors. This was the goal of the American Colonization Society, which in 1822 chose the coast of present-day Liberia as the place to send freed American ex-slaves. Ex-slaves gradually migrated to this land, dubbed the free land (Liberia), and declared independence in 1847. The dream of having a free and dignified Republic, however, did not end there, as the country it was divided between those who came from America and the native inhabitants. The first, who called themselves “Americans” made up the elite of the country, with studies and power, and provoked the antipathy of the ethnic groups that lived in the area, such as the one from which the Weahs come. The symbols of the new state, inspired by the United States, made clear the inspiration of the rulers of a country that would end up suffering a cruel civil war in the 90s, where the struggle for power was one of the key factors, in addition to the interests of European countries to control natural resources. The fate of Liberia, like the Weahs, cannot be understood without the United States. And Timothy Weah now shines with his selection, being a descendant of slaves on the Jamaican mother’s side and of Africans who suffered violence in Liberia on the father’s side.
