Everybody’s favourite football team
The world sighs in relief after the brave rescue of the young Thai players and their coach trapped in a cave.
FOR the first time in history, the entire world was rooting for the same football team.
Nope, not Brazil, and definitely not England.
Like millions of others, we were all praying for the one team. And our prayers have been answered.
The Wild Boars, the teenage Thai football team, and their coach have all been rescued, ending an 18-day ordeal of being trapped in a flooded cave. Yes, in the month when the eyes of the world were focused on the World Cup, these young boys became our second favourite team.
People around the world were riveted by the twists and turns of the long drawn-out rescue and the subsequent daring extraction of the 12 boys and the coach by a team of Thai navy SEALS and experienced international cavers.
Different people, regardless of race and religion, worked together, as the ultimate goal was the rescue of the youth football team and returning them home safely.
The hashtag #ThaiCaveRescue trended worldwide on social media as was the SEALS trademark “Hooyah!” to celebrate the successful rescue.
This incredible rescue will undoubtedly be made into a film – the triumph of the human spirit against overwhelming odds. In fact, a US film crew is currently in Chiang Rai already, plotting a movie project based on this extraordinary story in anticipation of a global box office hit!
The 12 boys, aged between 11 and 16, and their coach Ekkapol, 25, ventured into the Tham Luang cave in mountainous northern Thailand
on June 23 after football practice and got caught deep inside when heavy rains caused flooding that trapped them on a muddy ledge. They spent nine harrowing days in total darkness until two British divers found them.
But the initial euphoria at finding them dissipated as authorities struggled to devise a plan to get them out safely, with the ledge more than 4km deep inside the cave and the labyrinth of tunnels leading to them filled with water.
The death of a former Thai Navy SEAL diver who ran out of oxygen
in a flooded area of the cave underscored the dangers of the escape route.
As help started to pour in from around the world, different extraction plans were drawn up and then discarded. Tech tycoon Elon Musk built a miniature submarine to help carry the weak teenagers out of the partially flooded caves, and brought it to Thailand but his solution wasn’t the one chosen eventually.
It finally took an elite group of international cave divers from China, Britain, the US and Australia together with the Thai SEALS to get the boys out. A former Navy SEAL and combat swimmer said that the dangerous and harrowing rescue was comparable to climbing Mount Everest.
“Twelve dehydrated, hungry boys breathing low oxygen in total darkness for 15 days and who don’t know how to swim are learning to scuba dive in the most treacherous cave in the world. That’s like learning how to do advanced neurosurgery in a day. And succeeding,” American doctor, Eugene Gu, tweeted.
How the cave divers carried out the semi-conscious boys through the technically challenging early stages of the journey, with a lot of diving in narrow passages, we do not know.
The entire operation was complex, innovative and very bold. Nothing like it has been attempted before. It was a huge logistical operation involving hundreds of people building guide rope-and-pulley systems and putting in power and communication cables.
Ordinary Thais also got in on the act – the farmers who allowed their padi fields to be flooded when water was pumped out of the cave, the owner of the laundry that provided free service to the rescuers and the many food vendors who provided meals free of charge at the rescue site.
Narongsak Osatanakorn, head of the joint command centre coordinating the operation, called the boys “a symbol of unity among mankind”.
Clearly, if nothing else, this showed us once again that we live in a global village where there are no borders when it comes to stepping up to help each other.
The Wild Boars and their extraordinary story have been hailed around the world. FIFA boss Gianni Infantino invited them to watch the World Cup final on Sunday. But doctors treating the survivors have vetoed that suggestion, saying the boys will be too weak to travel to Moscow, and will most likely catch the final on TV.
But the teenagers, all from poor farming families, can look forward to catching Barcelona at Camp Nou and Manchester United at Old Trafford as both these teams have offered to host the Thais when the new season starts.
Celebrities around the world have also taken to social media to hail the survivors and send messages of support. David Beckham, Mark Zuckerberg, Louis Tomlinson and Jose Mourinho are among them.
But I think the most meaningful was a tweet from the World Cup on Wednesday, the day when all the survivors were finally rescued. French midfielder Paul Pogba dedicated France’s semi-final win against Belgium to the 12 boys.
“This victory goes to the heroes of the day, well done boys, you are so strong,” he tweeted.