46— SATURDAY Vanguard, JULY 13, 2019 Last Wednesday night, the Su per Eagles put up their best performance so far in AFCON 2019. As difficult as the match was, there were almost no threats to the Nigerian goal throughout the encounter. Even the goal the South Africans scored was a gift by the elements. On hindsight, it was so that Nigeria’s victory would be much sweeter. A match without high tensi<strong>on</strong> is like tea without sugar. A lot of the credit for the team that was assembled, how the team played, and how they w<strong>on</strong>, must naturally go to the man whose resp<strong>on</strong>sibility it was to put it all together – Gernot Rohr. A British journalist friend, Satish Sekar, called me up from Cairo after Nigeria w<strong>on</strong> their match <strong>again</strong>st South Africa last Wednesday night w<strong>on</strong>dering if I had changed my mind about Gernot Rohr and forgiven him his ‘sins’. Satish must have read media reports during the week where I said that were I to be in charge of the Super Eagles, I would have sidelined Gernot after the loss <strong>again</strong>st Madagascar. Hence his valid questi<strong>on</strong> now. My simple answer is that my statement was hypothetical. I am not in charge of Nigerian football. Gernot is still in charge of his team, a resp<strong>on</strong>sibility handed to him by his employers who also read my reacti<strong>on</strong> and, I believe, must have let the German know that he made a big mistake and goofed by toying with the emoti<strong>on</strong>s of Nigerians. Nigerians love to win every single match even if it is <strong>again</strong>st the World XI, and it is not that they do not know they are not the best team in the world and must lose matches. The issue is that, bey<strong>on</strong>d football, the country represents more than meets the ordinary eye with which Gernot Rohr must have been viewing Nigeria and Nigerians. Otherwise, why would he take the entire country for granted by taking an avoidable and unnecessary decisi<strong>on</strong> of assembling a ‘weak’ team to represent the largest c<strong>on</strong>gregati<strong>on</strong> of Black pers<strong>on</strong>s in the world, a country with pride, a country with rich historic antecedents in football, with resources and human capacity to become a global football power, to play a match, any match for that matter, where the whole world will be watching and the joy and livelihood of over 50 milli<strong>on</strong> Nigerians will be at risk? For general informati<strong>on</strong> purposes, for those that do not know, unofficial estimates put the number of people driving an undocumented football ec<strong>on</strong>omy in the country at over 50 milli<strong>on</strong>. Most of them are youths. Do the math. There are over 5 milli<strong>on</strong> small televisi<strong>on</strong> viewing centres in all the nooks and crannies of the country, with a minimum of about 10 people in each centre fueling business and sustaining a silent but very crucial ec<strong>on</strong>omy. •Rohr So, with over 50 milli<strong>on</strong> youths watching their nati<strong>on</strong>al team every time the Super Eagles play, a youth populati<strong>on</strong> of very loud people, barely surviving with great difficulty in a harsh political, ec<strong>on</strong>omic and social envir<strong>on</strong>ment, to lose an important match carelessly <strong>again</strong>st a small, country from ‘nowhere’ and Gernot Rohr – all is forgiven… but Nigeria needs a <strong>new</strong> coach for 2022! without any antecedents in football, is totally unacceptable. That ‘small’ defeat that Gernot glossed over with a remorseless smile when he granted an interview after the match, has dented Nigeria’s records in the history books of African football, could have cost Nigeria further progress in the current African champi<strong>on</strong>ship and created untold and immeasurable temporary pain and ag<strong>on</strong>y in every home in the country. It was a careless decisi<strong>on</strong>, and must be c<strong>on</strong>demned so that such is <strong>never</strong> repeated. The football ec<strong>on</strong>omy impacts <strong>on</strong> the media, the leisure industry, the betting industry, the entertainment industry, and so <strong>on</strong>. This hum<strong>on</strong>gous field is <strong>on</strong>e that feeds <strong>on</strong> the success of the Super Eagles. To lose an important match means hunger and ‘death’ for some businesses. I know because I am involved. That was my point. That was why I would have rested Gernot till the end of the champi<strong>on</strong>ship if I were in charge. To teach him a less<strong>on</strong> <strong>on</strong> how not to coach Nigeria’s nati<strong>on</strong>al team, and how not to take Nigerians and their nati<strong>on</strong>al sport for granted. He got my message, that’s the important thing. Something tells me that the meeting he held with Amaju Pinnick before the last match was to register that point and others to him. Since then every<strong>on</strong>e can see what has happened. Going forward now, no matter what happens till the end of the AFCON 2019 champi<strong>on</strong>ship, from what I saw last Wednesday night, Gernot Rohr has become a changed man. He is now reborn. He selected the best set of players that coincided with what majority of Nigerians watching all the matches and making their own assessments would largely agree with. He got the team to play with c<strong>on</strong>fidence and calmness and every<strong>on</strong>e could see a pattern, discipline and organizati<strong>on</strong> in how the team played. No, it was not perfect, but football is <strong>never</strong> perfect, but this time it worked. Playing like that, even if Nigeria had lost, we would still have been pained but would have g<strong>on</strong>e back home knowing that it was not because we disrespected our opp<strong>on</strong>ents and did not field the best of us. Gernot was <strong>on</strong> his feet raising his voice, gesticulating from time to time, feebly giving out instructi<strong>on</strong>s, trying to act as if marshaling the team and guiding them, throughout that match. He showed some c<strong>on</strong>cern for whatever was going to happen, even if he was obviously not in the class of a Mourinho, or a Klopp, in the act of being the 12tth player. He did not play ‘sentiments’. When he felt that the captain of the team needed to give way, he did not even hesitate in substituting Ahmed Musa. That’s how a serious coach should behave to dem<strong>on</strong>strate loyalty and commitment to a foreign country that hires him. Gernot has changed. So, he deserves to be given the opportunity to serve out his term. Going forward, however, looking towards a bigger goal, going to the 2022 World Cup and going far in accordance to Nigeria’s potentials seen l<strong>on</strong>g ago by global experts, but still hovering in the periphery of greatness <strong>on</strong>ly, the country needs a <strong>new</strong> coach, <strong>on</strong>e that will imbibe and use the inherent strengths in the Nigerian DNA to drive the country’s football and footballers to become the best in the world and show the rest of the domestic polity, that Nigeria can be the greatest Black country in the world with the right kind of leadership…and followership. Football can be the light of at <strong>new</strong> nati<strong>on</strong>. So, in resp<strong>on</strong>se to Satish’s questi<strong>on</strong>, for Gernot Rohr, all is forgiven! Good luck to him for the rest of AFCON 2019. As the curtain falls <strong>on</strong> the 2019 World University Games in Napoli, Italy, it would be <strong>on</strong> record that Nigeria did not send a team to the biennial champi<strong>on</strong>ship, which is in its 30th editi<strong>on</strong>. This is what happens when no form of accountability is required from our administrators, neither are sancti<strong>on</strong>s meted out to erring officials who time and time <strong>again</strong>, bungle Nigeria’s participati<strong>on</strong> in internati<strong>on</strong>al competiti<strong>on</strong>s. The World University Games, which kicked off <strong>on</strong> July 3rd, is an internati<strong>on</strong>al multi-sport event, organized for university athletes by the Internati<strong>on</strong>al University Sports Federati<strong>on</strong> (FISU). Also known as the Universiade, the event holds every two years, which means that countries that have plans of attending this competiti<strong>on</strong>, have a timeline of two years to set the ball rolling and put a plan in place. The body that oversees Nigeria’s participati<strong>on</strong> at the Universiade is the Nigerian University Games Associati<strong>on</strong> (NUGA). Over the years, Nigeria has w<strong>on</strong> a total of 34 medals at the Games. Incidentally, all 34 medals were gotten in Track and Field. Nigeria’s first medallist at the Universiade was Timo Ogunjimi, who w<strong>on</strong> a Br<strong>on</strong>ze medal in the men’s 400m Hurdles at the 1975 editi<strong>on</strong> in Italy. The country’s best ever performance at the World University Games was the 1983 editi<strong>on</strong> in Edm<strong>on</strong>t<strong>on</strong>, Canada, where we secured five Gold medals and finished third <strong>on</strong> the Athletics medals table. Chidi Imoh w<strong>on</strong> the men’s 100m (10.33s), while Innocent Egbunike Egbunike w<strong>on</strong> the 200m in 20.42s. Sunday Uti w<strong>on</strong> the 400m (45.32s) as Yusuf Alli claimed the men’s L<strong>on</strong>g Jump title with a leap of 8.21m. It was at this competiti<strong>on</strong> that Ajayi Agbebaku set a Na- Nigeria’s ‘no-show’ in Napoli, <strong>on</strong>e miss too many ti<strong>on</strong>al Record (NR) of 17.26m to win the men’s Triple Jump. 36 years later, that record still stands! Now imagine that Nigeria had failed to send a team to Edm<strong>on</strong>t<strong>on</strong> at the time, would the likes of Agbebaku have gotten the opportunity to set such outstanding feats? For two decades now, Nigeria has been unable to replicate similar feats at the Games as the last time we got to the podium was exactly 20 years ago, when Doris Jacob took a Br<strong>on</strong>ze medal in the women’s 400m. How do we expect to win medals when our officials c<strong>on</strong>tinue to treat Nigeria’s participati<strong>on</strong> at the Games with such levity? At the past two editi<strong>on</strong>s of the Games held in Gwanju (2015) and Taipei (2017) respectively, the country’s representatives arrived the venue embarrassingly late, with some of them eventually missing their events as a result. Others were entered for the wr<strong>on</strong>g events and as such, couldn’t really pull their weight at the end of the day. However, unlike the above-menti<strong>on</strong>ed scenario, this time around, the Nigerian c<strong>on</strong>tingent wasn’t even registered for the Games to begin with. NUGA failed to enter the athletes for the competiti<strong>on</strong> before the entry deadline, which is usually well over a m<strong>on</strong>th before the event. If they had no plans of sending a team to the World University Games, what was the purpose of organizing the FISU Trials at the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) back in April? To make matters worse, as at the start of the Games <strong>on</strong> Wednesday, 3rd of July, NUGA was still attempting to make late visa applicati<strong>on</strong>s for the Nigerian athletes and officials to enter Italy. Suffice it to say, their late visa applicati<strong>on</strong>s to Italy were not granted, dashing the hopes of these athletes who had to make sacrifices to leave their respective schools to attend the Trials in Osun State. This is a big shame when we c<strong>on</strong>sider that some of Nigeria’s Student-Athletes are in the form of their lives right now. After all, the fastest University Student in the world right now is Divine Oduduru – he is the joint sec<strong>on</strong>d fastest man in the world this year in the 100m, and third fastest man in the 200m, and could have become <strong>on</strong>ly the sec<strong>on</strong>d men’s double sprint Champi<strong>on</strong> at the Games in 40 years, after South Africa’s Anaso Jobodwana in 2013. How about the likes of University of Florida’s Raym<strong>on</strong>d Ekevwo (10.02sec) and OAU’s Enoch Adegoke (10.12sec), whose Pers<strong>on</strong>al Bests (PB) clocked this seas<strong>on</strong>, surpass the winning time for the men’s 100m in Taipei two years ago where Yang Chun-han struck Gold with a time of 10.22sec? Looking at the men’s 200m, UNILAG’s Jerry Jakpa stormed to a PB of 20.59sec in Abuja two weeks ago, which betters the winning time of 20.93sec from Taipei. The quartet (Oduduru, Adegoke, Ekevwo and Jakpa) would have formed a lethal combinati<strong>on</strong> in the men’s 4x100m relay. On the women’s side, athletes like Aniekeme Alph<strong>on</strong>sus (11.30sec), Joy Udo-Gabriel (11.56sec), Favour Ofili (23.24sec, 52.28sec), Praise Idamadudu and Ruth Usoro could have c<strong>on</strong>tested for medals, both individually and in the relays. It is a shame that we c<strong>on</strong>tinue to fail our athletes in this manner. Things have got to change!
SATURDAY Vanguard, JULY 13, 2019—47
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