Africa has produced some of the most magical ballers we’ve ever seen.

Almost every region of the continent has a long list of elite names to boast about. West African fans have Yaya Touré, Didier Drogba and Jay-Jay Okocha to reminisce over. North Africans can point to Zinedine Zidane and Mohamed Salah among others. Central Africans can draw for Samuel Eto’o and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Southern Africans have Champions League-winning Benni McCarthy to lean on.

But what about East Africa?

Well, as a proud member of the delegation, we’ve had to wait patiently for a baller of our own to get behind. Because of that, we haven’t been able to get too involved in the above discussion. 

Instead, we’ve been putting all our stocks in youth players of old and believing that each wonderkid from the region would bring us some footballing legitimacy at the top level.

Truth be told, we haven’t had an undisputed great emerge. Until now. Alexander Isak is that player and he represents a hope that East Africans have never been able to indulge until he came around. 

The 25-year-old striker has been on our collective radar for long enough. But to those who weren’t praying for him to blow, it can be quite easy to forget that he emerged as a wonderkid in Sweden. Isak still holds the record for being the youngest-ever scorer for his first club AIK and the Swedish national team. And he continued to break records almost everywhere else he went.

From an early age, Isak was constantly compared to the uniquely talented Zlatan Ibrahimović, mainly because of their shared Swedish nationality. But the Newcastle forward has his own unique blend of skills that make him something of a footballing unicorn. 

We love him so dearly because we can all still see a bit of ourselves in him even though he’s one of the best in the business. As a north west London native, hearing him speak with his Newcastle teammates in an accent that sounds like he could’ve grown up in Church Road is another heartwarming layer of familiarity for me personally.

He is now one of the best players in the world, and the patience East African fans have shown in waiting this long for an iconic baller is being repaid in ways that can’t be measured.

Sweden is an inescapable part of Isak’s journey. But it’s the rarity of his heritage in elite football, combined with how common his background is among countless East Africans around the world that resonates most. Born to Eritrean parents who fled the country during its second civil war, this is an unfortunate but familiar story to many from the region.

But the Swede hasn’t forgotten his roots. Isak has gone back to visit his homeland to inspire local kids from the same area his parents grew up to dream big. 

For a football-loving country without many other role models in that space, that kind of impact is huge.

There is a lot of political division in East Africa that often separates us from being as united as we could be. But Isak, much like Didier Drogba for Ivory Coast, is a unifying figure in the region and a source of real pride in the midst of hard times.

He might be important on the pitch for Newcastle and Sweden, but he represents so much more that must be treasured off it. Having him as the most prominent footballer we have ever seen breeds faith that there is more to come.

The hope is that when it’s all said and done, and conversations persist about who the best ballers to come from Africa are, East Africans fans can finally stick their chests out thanks to Isak.

Like most East Africans you’ll find at your local football cage, he’s always preferred to play the game with an emphasis on delicacy and deftness. But standing at 6ft 4, there were times earlier in his career where this approach would have him looking a bit like Bambi on ice. Now he’s honed his craft to the point where whoever's marking him 1v1 looks like a deer in headlights.

Just watch his assist against Everton last season and tell me that isn’t the final form of every East African player you’ve seen play five-a-side.

When you think of East Africa in elite level sport, chances are your mind will land on long distance running. It’s a discipline many from the region have conquered, but it has also been used to pigeonhole expectations around what we can hope to achieve elsewhere. 

Seeing Isak weave the same wiry frame that runners Zersenay Tadese, Mo Farah and Eliud Kipchoge used to dominate marathons is a piece of poetic justice East Africa has longed for in football.

This is one of the lesser spotted reasons why Isak means so much to our community. He is living out our dreams at the top level in exactly the same way millions of us have imagined doing so in parks, playgrounds and streets across the globe. He stayed true to his style and never looked back.

Whether it was goals, a big move, aesthetics, Isak has cleared every obstacle in his way so far. For every false dawn East African football fans have had, Isak is a sunrise like no other.