The Super Eagles of Nigeria came, saw but did not conquer at the 21st edition of the FIFA World Cup which is the sixth appearance for the football loving nation at the global tournament. The West African country has missed just one of the last seven World Cup finals and in last five appearances, the team progressed beyond the group stage three times. Below is the diary of a Super Eagles fan, an NFF ambassador and one of the greatest footballers Nigeria has ever produced with his experience live in Russia.
This is match-day 3 experience. 11am WAT, 26 June 2018 – Nigeria v Argentina.
“There are eight hours to the start of the ‘Third World War’. I am alone in my room in Park Inn Hotel, St. Petersburg, the city where the ‘war’ with Argentina will take place this evening. I am praying, I can’t see the Super Eagles again because I think they deserve to be on their own, focused on the work they have to do tonight. For me, this may be the most challenging match in our entire history because Nigerian’s expect (and justifiably too) that their beloved Super Eagles, their most visible and potent global ambassadors, will do the seemingly ‘impossible’. They are expected to defy all odds, break a jinx of four previous consecutive defeats at the World Cup, neutralize arguably the greatest player in the history of football for 90 minutes, silence the over 40,000 die-hard supporters following the Argentine team, plus an additional, overwhelmingly anti-black audience that dominate a Cup that is surely not designed so that a Black African team will win, and defeat a pre-championship favorite, Argentina, tonight. That is the mountain our team of young, hardworking and patriotic Super Eagles who are expected to climb and conquer successfully today. The odds are stacked against the Eagles. It is mostly Nigerians that believe that their team will win tonight. That’s the big advantage the Nigerian players have – unlike the Argentines there is no pressure-cooker tension in their camp. Unlike the Argentines there will be no global humiliation even in defeat. When I left the team yesterday my spirit was lifted by their attitude and composure, a steeliness in their eyes reflecting determination and confidence, and an uncommon calmness of a single-mindedness to put up the fight of their lives, and to do-or-die in the process. I challenged Mikel Obi, captain of the Nigerian ‘army’ tonight, to use this match to make a statement to all Nigerians, reminding us all about who we are in the world, where we are coming from and our responsibility to all black persons on earth. That even When the odds are stacked against us, when we come together in a team, driven by the natural Nigerian spirit in our DNA, when we direct our energies positively, we can conquer the world. Unfortunately for the Argentines they are our cannon fodder tonight. I read somewhere that they have never had a Black player in their national team, ever! Well, that speaks louder than words why that is so. Indeed, that’s why to me today’s match is Nigeria’s World Cup final. We must beat Argentina. After that I can go home. It will not matter too much again what happens there after….these Eagles would have stamped their names and place forever in the annals of the World Cup. These ‘ordinary’ Nigerians with an extra-ordinary motivation to demonstrate Nigeria’s capacity to be great in the world, even beyond football, would become, at a time such as this in our political history, the model of genuine heroes the country needs to lead Nigeria out of the present Golgotha. The road to becoming the greatest Black Country in the world can start tonight with the Super Eagles. Mark my words. Let us pray for them”.
11pm WAT, 26 June 2018; after the game!
“The journey has ended. For Nigeria and for Nigerians the World Cup adventure is over. Even without playing well the Super Eagles could have run away with a victory, or a draw at least. The inexperience of some players at key moments, the coach who ran out of ideas about how to manage the last 10 minutes of a match that was not really difficult, and the reality that the best effort by the Eagles was just not good enough on the night, made the end rather painful and sobering. Otherwise, members of the delegation that went to the stadium in special buses returned individually; the milling crowd at the hotel lounges are already thinning out and leaving in droves to the airport in search of the earliest flights out of Russia; even the Super Eagles will disappear from their hotel rooms individually, many before daybreak. That’s the shocking tradition of all the participating teams except the last four still standing at the end. By tomorrow night all the players in the Super Eagles team will head out to different holiday destinations away from the pressures of the World Cup. Russia will empty of Nigerians, and no one left here would even notice because new spectators of other qualified teams will arrive to take their places. In short, from tonight everyone is on their own already. God help you if you can’t fend for yourself in the next crucial 24 hours. I am sitting down in the lounge of Park Inn hotel observing the human exodus to the airport in St. Petersburg even this late at night. The NFF and its board members have a lot on their plate from tonight. The politics and fight over a new leadership of the NFF is already in full throttle, with the Amaju Pinnick tenure coming to an end in two months’ time, or so. Attention has already shifted from the field to the boardroom as groups engage in a jostle for positions in the anticipated new NFF. A few potential contenders for offices are in Russia along with the entire electorate of club chairmen and State FA chairmen. Conversation on the team’s performance have almost ended with most persons here blaming the coach for not knowing what to do to hold out for a draw towards the end. Meanwhile, I salute the Super Eagles of Nigeria for their effort in Russia. The thought of hundreds of their country men and women and children that have lost their lives in domestic crisis in the country has dampened the spirit of the players even beyond the pain of defeat by Lionel Messi and company tonight. I retire here. Goodnight Nigerians and sorry for the painful loss tonight.”
36 hours after Nigeria’s elimination from the FIFA World Cup! 28 June 2018
“The hotel lobby has been empty of Nigerians since yesterday. Most have left for the train stations and airports seeking to get out of Russia. I hear also that many Nigerians have disappeared as usual into the hinterland of Russia adopting the new status of economic refugees. There is nothing in this most unwelcoming of places for any black person to give up their freedom at home to enslavement here. Even Corinthian Hotel, where the Super Eagles stayed, is now deserted. The party is over. The last of the Eagles will leave this morning. The transformation in treatment by the public here, from hero to near zero, is a shock and could be traumatic for the younger players. The once teeming autograph seekers have disappeared. The hustle and bustle and tight security have evaporated into thin air. Suddenly the interest has now shifted to other teams and players still in the championship. The Nigerian players have been leaving humbly, quietly and individually to their different destinations. Incidentally, most of them have their aides here with them, paid young Nigerians that they sponsor from home that help them with errands around. Several NFF officials in FIFA committees have joined their committees here for World Cup assignments. Park Inn hotel has been taken over by new visitors, supporters of teams that will be playing here in the magnificent 64,000 capacity St. Petersburg stadium in continuation of a World Cup that has quickly forgotten Nigeria was even here and will not miss her. Everything had just gone on as if we were never here to start with. That’s how it has always being at the World Cup. Attention span is always so limited. Three former NFF Chairmen, the chairman of a football club in Abia state, chairman of a new political party/emerging force in Nigeria and a few others in the same hotel as I, are all leaving town later today and heading back to Nigeria but I still have little work to do here. I want to monitor Argentina, the conquerors of Nigeria, to see how far they will go as a measure of how far the Super Eagles would have gone had we managed our ‘5 minutes to midnight’ two days ago. I need to see Argentina go as far as they can so that I can also gauge what the Eagles would have done, and how far they would have gone (at least academically) had they not gifted the Argentines a lifeline. I can glean all this, at least, in my imagination. It has been a great and enriching experience even for me, though very painful in the manner we exited the world Cup – in a whimper. The news from home is a spirit dampener. Brutal killings and maiming of citizens of the same country in a senseless orgy. Why? Why? Well, that’s what we all must now confront and deal with decisively in order to halt a fall into an irreversible catastrophe. Thanks to everyone that has followed my little diary in Russia”.
France, winners of Group C play Argentina, runner-up in Group D in one of the Round of 16 matches at the Kazan Arena on Saturday. View Game & Bet
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