Keshi’s baptism in Rwanda – the Eagles would not fly!

Unfortunately, I cannot make any informed comments on the match because I did not watch it. At about the time of the match I was deep into arrangements to honour an invitation by the prestigious Havard Business School to attend a conference on African football in the United States. So, my expected comments on the […]

Unfortunately, I cannot make any informed comments on the match because I did not watch it. At about the time of the match I was deep into arrangements to honour an invitation by the prestigious Havard Business School to attend a conference on African football in the United States. So, my expected comments on the match would be limited to the final score-line and the Nigerian players that were featured. I do not know how the team played, so there would be no comment from me.

The match, defined by the barrenness of goals, tells the story of how, still, a big national team as reputable as the Super Eagles of Nigeria, cannot to get back to winning ways. Ordinarily, comparing the reputation and the talent in both teams, Rwanda would be fodder for the Super Eagles anywhere and any day. That was the hope Nigerians had with the entry of Stephen Keshi as coach and with his new strategy to build a team rather than just assemble reputable individual players. A look at the team that played reveals, however, that the foreign-based players still dominated and constituted the core of Keshi’s new assembly. No one can blame him for being cautious and for using a few of the ageing players that had failed the country in the past. It is hard to discountenance the performances of some of them that have been brilliant lately. That is the only reason why Keshi could muster the courage and justify inviting Yakubu Aiyegbeni back to the national team. Peter Odewingie also could not be left out after scoring five times in three consecutive matches in the very competitive English premiership. But I guess that their performances in Kigali would have left a new impression with Keshi and taught him a good lesson.

In his baptismal match Stephen Keshi surprisingly kept faith with the old brigade by using 8 of them in Kigali. He kept returnee Vincent Inyama in goal. He kept captain Joseph Yobo who was playing his 87th match for the national team and setting a new record for national appearances at that level, still manning the heart of the Nigerian defence, supported by Taye Taiwo on the left. In the midfield he still depended on the same old group of foreign-based players including Etuhu and Joel Obi. It is in front, searching for goals, that he did token new introductions. Ejike Uzoenyi, the diminutive left-sided mid-fielder/winger that was discovered during the All-Nigeria Secondary Schools Football Championship a few years ago, and who has matured well in the domestic league, was featured on the left side of the attack. And Victor Moses, who finally decided to play for Nigeria rather than England that he had played for at junior level, was brought in as a substitute in the second half to mark his debut. But significantly, Keshi still relied on the duo of Peter Odemwingie and Yakubu Aiyegbeni to deliver the goods. They could not replicate their English Premiership performances in the rough and tumble of African football. That is the challenge. Obviously, to all that are looking very closely at the impact of foreign-based players on African football, playing in the continent requires a different dynamic than when playing in the sophisticated atmosphere of European football. African football is more physical and less technically organised. It, thus, requires more of physical strength, fitness, ‘hunger’ and speed rather than technique and flair.

What that tells simply is that there is a lot more work and more changes to be made by Keshi for a new and authentic generation of Super Eagles to emerge and to bury the image of a weak and ageing Eagles team of the recent past. The Eagles have been punished in the past for not winning easier away-from-home matches. They failed to qualify for some major championships as a result.

Although it is expected that the Eagles will win the return-leg match in Nigeria in June, only time will tell how expensive that drawn match against Rwanda would turn out to be when all the results of the group matches are compiled.

Having said that, the new Super Eagles, with the conservative no-goals score-line from Kigali, leave much doubt in the minds of Nigerians. Daggers are still sheathed though just to give Stephen Keshi another chance to create a genuinely new team and revive the winning tradition of the Eagles!

My invitation to Havard Business School!

It is Thursday night! I am already in Boston, the American university town in the State of Massachusetts. I am attending a conference at the invitation of the prestigious Harvard Business School as one of the five panelists drawn from around the world that will be discussing ‘Building of a viable Football Industry’ as part of the events of the 14th Annual Africa Business Conference of the Harvard Business School. It is indeed a great honour to have been considered worthy of such invitation and to partake in the conversations around the general conference theme ‘Africa Incorporated: Cultivating an Integrated Market’.

Surely, I shall be sharing with readers my experiences in the conference on this page later.

Meanwhile, several interesting things are developing around Nigerian sports in general and football in particular that I want to share.

The Nigerian Senate versus the Nigeria Football Association!

The struggle for the soul of football administration in Nigeria assumed a rather new dimension this past week when the Senate of the National Assemble sat and discussed the state of Nigerian football. I followed part of the debate on television and was pleasantly surprised that even the senators are disturbed by the poor state of the country’s football, both technically and administratively. The Senate immediately mandated its committee on sports to conduct a public hearing on the matter. For the first time I intend to participate in the conversations.

NNPC/Shell Cup enters crucial stage!

Nigeria’s greatest source of under-17 football players, the NNPC/Shell Cup for All-Nigeria Secondary Schools Football Championship, enters its crucial stages from this week. Thousands of student footballers are assembling in various cities around the country to take part in the zonal preliminaries of the championship that involves individual State champion secondary schools around the country. Although the competition is not strictly an age-group competition, it is expected that those to participate will not be older than 18 years old. Only those that are below 17 would be recommended for possible invitation and trails into the national under-17 team.

Nigeria’s sports revolution starts next week!

Next week the Nigeria Academicals Table Tennis Championship, the first project in the revival of sports activities of NASCOM, shall take-off in Ibadan from March 5. It will last till March 10. The idea is that the championships in the 6 sports selected to take place this year amongst the selected teams of students representing their State of residence must take place to demonstration the seriousness of government in engaging and empowering the Nigerian student with sports and a good education. NASCOM is determined that even if only one State in the country registers to take part (and we believe more than that will want to expose their youths to the programme and register) the competitions will kick-off. On March 12, the second sports event, the Nigeria Academicals Tennis Championship will also kick-off in Ado Ekiti.

Thereafter, the programmes for the 4 other sports will take place between the end of March and May 2012. The last event will be the football championship.

Another invitation to the World Congress on Public Health!

As I was preparing to go to Harvard Business School this week I received another very interesting invitation by the International Research Centre, Canada, the organisers of the World Public Health Association Congress coming up in April in Ethiopia. I am expected to participate as a co-panelist with Dr. K. Akinroye of the Nigerian Heart Foundation, in presenting the vision of President Goodluck Jonathan’s project, and the role of NASCOM in reviving sports in Nigerian secondary schools (grassroots) as an important tool in promoting a healthy heart in the population leading to improving the life expectancy of the people through prevention of non-communicable diseases especially heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. The revival of school sports in Nigeria becomes a model for the improvement of health care amongst the youths of Africa. NASCOM is in collaboration with the Nigerian Heart Foundation in driving the project in Nigeria and Dr. Kola Akinroye has been identifying with the vision since inception and wants to build on the collaboration to impact on the Nigerian population.

I shall be attending the congress on behalf of NASCOM to promote the initiative of grassroots sports development as a tool for driving many health, education, business, diplomatic, and tourism causes in Nigeria and even beyond!