Hardball had a vicarious orgasm. Sam (In Touch) Omatseye came instantly – with a poem which streamed in with the final whistle. A Mexican Tear, it is titled: The Nigerians had value for their feet/ in fit after fit, wrote the in-house bard still relishing the afterglow of 90 minutes of exciting football poetics. It had been nearly one month of foreplay as the 15th FIFA Under-17 World Cup raged in the exotic city of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. At last the crescendo the Saturday finale, during which the Nigerian lads took the nation to a glorious ecstasy as they performed the final act of soccer supremacy over the rest of the world.
Where did these lads learn to play soccer with so much poetry and even a dash of sorcery? They touched it as if it were not a running round leather object; as if it were something at their magical command: go now to Ihenacho— transport to Captain Mohammed—— find Yahaya— end up in the opponent’s net; so very simple it seemed. If the Eaglets were Indians, they would have confirmed the long held myth that they play with such subterranean powers which led to a FIFA ban. One of such tales is that when you play an Indian team you find your self contending with about 36 players on the pitch instead of 11.
But the Nigerian team has a pedigree: this is the 4th time they are lifting the trophy. Even the Spanish giant, Barcelona Football Club, the grandmasters of the touch-touch style of play also known as tiki-taka, would have gone green with envy watching these boys from Africa. They played six matches through the tournament, scored 22 goals and conceded only five. But the goals understated their prowess. They did not only beat all their opponent silly, they treated them like kids; making them weep like babies after each match. Sweden they drew with at their first encounter and upon the second meeting, it was a resounding three goals to nil drubbing. It is same story with the Mexicans who had fallen 6 – 1 in the very first match and in the final last Saturday, the Eaglets reaffirmed that the first time was no fluke. They mauled them by three goals to zero to lift the cup.
It is a performance from another world and the whole world must have taken note that our play was not ordinary. But can Nigeria harness its glory? Going by her previous record (having won it three times before) with no significant impact in the national team will this be different? If these young lads beat the world so dazzlingly today, the reasonable progression is that five years hence, in their early 20s, they should repeat the feat at the senior World Cup (2018)?
This had never been the natural progression in our age-grade football. Apart from this team, Hardball wagers that with a little effort, we can raise 37 other junior teams as good as this world winners (one from each state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory). Such is the great talent and the human person potentialities available to us. But we are perennially stumped by the requisite leadership to harvest our vast riches.
One good example is that this team need not be disbanded; we can do so much with it. It can be branded and taken on a worldwide tour – country to country, continent to continent – where they would merchandise, sign autographs, play exhibition matches with youth clubs and even senior teams. Almost every country’s youths would want to watch them play. But they must be carefully packaged and marketed. There is enormous revenue to be earned and the big image boost for Nigeria.
Hardball says there is so much more where this magical Eaglets come from – in basket ball, tennis, the sprints and races, swimming, boxing, name it. But where is that man with the magic wand who will invoke the Nigerian spirit?
