Puso seemed to follow exactly what was happening. He was sitting next to Mr. Molofololo, and the great man occasionally leant over and discussed a point of tactics with him. At half-time, when the players went off the field and the Botswana Defence Force band marched out onto the field to play, Mma Ramotswe asked Puso how the match was going.

“Not very well,” Puso said. “The Swoopers are going to lose, I think. Unless Quickie Chitamba can do something.”

“Quickie Chitamba? Who is this Quickie Chitamba?”

Puso looked at Mma Ramotswe with the condescending tolerance of one explaining something to another who cannot possibly understand. This was men's business, he seemed to be saying. “Quickie Chitamba is a striker, Mma. It is his job to score goals.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. She understood that goals were the object of the whole exercise, but could not any player score a goal?

“And the goalkeeper has to stop that, doesn't he?” she asked.

“Of course,” Puso replied. “And we have a very good goalkeeper, Mma.”

“We?”

Puso explained again. “Our team. Swoopers. The goalie is Big Man Tafa. He is a very good goalie.”

Mma Ramotswe nodded. “I see. Being a big man must be a good thing if you are a goalkeeper. Big Man Tafa must block the mouth of the goal.”

Puso shook his head. “Except he is very small, Mma.”

“Big Man Tafa is small?”

“Yes,” said Puso. “He is very small, Mma. But he is also a very good goalkeeper.”

Mma Ramotswe was silent. She was learning a great deal about football in a very short time. She was learning about possession of the ball, about strikers and their doings, about big men who were really small; and there would be more to learn no doubt during the second half.

They returned to their seats, the band marched off, and the match began once more. Mma Ramotswe noticed that the teams were now playing in different directions and that the pace of play seemed to have increased. The crowd, that seemed to have swelled for the second half, was even more vocal, and shouts in both English and Setswana were directed forcefully towards players who were thought not to be playing too well. And then, quite unexpectedly, a goal was scored and half the stadium erupted in a roar of triumph.

Mma Ramotswe was not sure exactly what happened, but there was no doubt amongst the Swooper supporters that the goal was Big Man Tafa's fault. And Mr. Molofololo, who had been watching the second half in silence, now turned to Mma Ramotswe and said, “See, Mma? We are going to lose now. Again. We're going to lose again.”

“But there is still time for us to score a goal,” said Mma Ramotswe soothingly.

“There is only ten minutes,” said Mr. Molofololo. “We are finished, Mma. Finished.”

He spoke in such dejected tones that Mma Ramotswe's heart went out to him. He was like a little boy she thought; this great man was like a little boy who had been beaten in some juvenile game of stones. She almost said to him, It's just a game, you know, but something stopped her. It was true that it was just a game, but for these people caught up in it, it seemed to be much more than that. It was more like a battle for life or death.