Paul Daugherty

pdaugherty@enquirer.com

The best thing about attending an Olympics overseas is the humbling nature of the experience. We Americans tend to believe the world revolves around us. Our language, our culture, our particular skew on the way things should be. Then we go to an Olympics in, say, South Korea or Greece, and we discover it’s not that way at all.

I am sitting with Djiby (pronounced “Jee-bee’’) Fall in a modest apartment he shares with a teammate. Fall is a striker for FC Cincinnati, the player the club hired to replace Sean Okoli. Cincinnati has six goals this season. Fall has scored them all.

He’s an experienced futbol player, having worked in eight countries and coming up on his 32nd birthday on Thursday. Last season, Fall played in Kazakhstan. Find Kazakhstan on a map of the world, win fabulous prizes chosen just for you.

It’s not the futbol that makes Fall so important to us, though. Futbol is just the entry to something bigger. He’s a man of the world, who has learned things the rest of us could benefit from knowing. Fall speaks fair English, he’s fluent in French and in Wolof, the native tongue of his home country, Senegal.

He’s very well-versed in the universal language of Getting Along.

Our conversation bumps and sways. I know a little French, he knows just enough English. Someone suggested we include FC Cincy’s coach, Alan Koch, in the conversation. Koch (pronounced “Kotch’’) is 41. He grew up in South Africa during the time of apartheid. He speaks English, German and Afrikaans.

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Fall and his wife have a 3-year-old daughter. I ask him her name. He tells me. I have trouble with the spelling. I have trouble with him spelling it for me. He takes my pen and my pad and writes her name:

Adja-Sokhna.

“She is 4 in July,’’ Fall says. “Her last name is Fall. Like me. I name her for my mom. Sokhna is my mom’s name.’’

He has been playing professionally since he left Senegal for France, when he was 18. France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Russia, Kazakhstan. Cincinnati. International soccer doesn’t treat its players the way we treat our pros. Players are bought and sold and “loaned.’’ A player’s agent scouts where he believes his client will be best served, and tries to get him there. Long contracts are rare. Have opportunity, will travel.

Fall doesn’t mind this. “Since 2003, I am out of my country,’’ he shrugs. “This is my work. Mentally, I am ready to go. Put my head down, go to work. Maybe people think when I move, it’s up to me. It’s not up to me. It’s futbol life.’’

He has no regrets. He feels fortunate. When he left Senegal at 18, he said, “Futbol is my passion, but also my work. What I like is my work.’’ Then Fall adds a lovely explanation, one that only a lack of fluency could provide: “What I was dreaming, I do.’’

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He returned to Senegal last November for three months, after an absence of almost four years. When he left there to come to Cincinnati, yet another new city in yet another new country, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

He liked Denmark best, he said, mostly because he played there for three years. “When you play a lot of games, it’s like communion with the fans. I could live in Denmark. I have a lot of history there. I know the country. Denmark, Sweden, Norway, they have the same culture,’’ he says.

He said Belgium “was like home’’ because the people spoke French. Kazakhstan was “Russia, only not big.’’ Russia was “beautiful’’ but could be confusing. “Sometimes, you don’t understand what they want,’’ he says. “It’s not like here.’’

He hasn’t seen much of Cincinnati. He got here in February, got his documentation in order and went to work. I ask him his birthday plans for Thursday. How will you celebrate?

“How celebrate? I hope to win on Wednesday,’’ says Fall.

OK, but your birthday is Thursday. Maybe you could go out to eat. “There a lot of restaurants right around here,’’ I say.

“At the moment, no plans,’’ Fall says. “We play Wednesday and Saturday. To me, job is first. I need to have good rest. I didn’t yet have time to go to restaurants.’’

Those painted by travel’s broad brush seem better equipped to catch what the world pitches them.

“The best thing in life is to live your life properly,’’ Fall says. “The more you travel, the more you have open mind. Different cultures give you lots of experience.

“We can discuss. Is not a problem. All we need is respect. I have big respect for the fans here. They give a lot of emotion to the players. This is very nice. I scored four goals’’ in FCC’s last game. “This was not most important. Most important was how the team was working together. The more we stay together, the more success will come.’’

A universal philosophy, rarely applied.