The 2014 edition of the greatest show on earth, as the FIFA World Cup is affectionately called, has come and gone. And in many ways, Brazil, ably supported by their guests of 31 football squads from 31 countries across six continents, certainly put up a great display of football at the highest level of the sport over a period of 31 days. Next time out, in four years’ time to be precise, the football world turns its attention to Russia, where the 2018 edition of the quadrennial tournament, is scheduled to take place. Until then, many of the serious-minded football nations of the world will spend the time in-between planning towards the next world cup, identifying players who will, all things being equal, play a major part for their countries come June/July 2018 in the cold wintry conditions of Russia.
It is really funny how, here in Nigeria, we always put out jingles during World Cup tournaments that allude to our number in population as well as our spirit as a nation. In the run-up to and during the recent World Cup in Brazil, different groups and corporations painted billboards and our television screens green-and-white with enthusiastic messages. One common thread that ran through the messages was “we have all it takes” to beat the best at the World Cup, perhaps, simply because we are Nigerians or Africans with a special indomitable spirit and population strength. Patriotism is all fine and good, and I could never see a sin in being optimistic. But then again, I believe that optimism must always be tempered with a healthy dose of rationality. As they say, luck is usually basically a case of preparation meeting opportunity at some point. And that is where I have issues with our seemingly incurable optimism and unfathomable expectations on our sporting teams at each meet.
Nigeria may have attended the World Cup as champions of the African continent, but that did not automatically make the Super Eagles a superior football outfit than any of the other teams which attended the tournament as non-champions of their continents. The fallacy and hollowness of believing in the hype of attending the World Cup as champions from an African perspective, has been brutally exposed several times in the past as no African champion at the tournament had ever made it beyond the round of 16 matches. In fact, only once previously – Nigeria in 1994 – had a team attending the tournament as champions from Africa progressed out of the group stage of the World Cup in contemporary history of the FIFA tournament. And if we needed any further reminders, only last year, at the FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil, Tahiti, which came into the tournament as Champions of Oceania, got heavily mauled by every team in their group, including Nigeria, scoring only a solitary goal (against Nigeria) in the process.
At every sporting tournament, different teams or individuals, take part with varied levels of expectations. It is no less so at the World Cup where teams participate with their respective level of what to expect. Of course, the level of expectation is always tied to the level of preparation prior to the tournament. However, what the tournament proved to all was that the foundation of a successful outing is built around the core ingredient of genuine player quality in addition to the overall individual and collective discipline of the team members and, of course, the passion to win. But then, it is worthy of note that passion alone does not drive a team forward without a good dose of any of the other ingredients.
Brazil, for instance, wobbled along until they eventually fell flat on their face. This is because though they had some players of genuine quality, notably Neymar Da Silva, the poster boy of the tournament, they nevertheless didn’t quite have enough quality and balance throughout their team to make them into a full force of genuine tournament heavyweights to inspire much confidence in supporters and fear in opponents. In the absence of that, the team merely sought to feed on the nation’s fervor and the hope that Brazil’s reputation as five-time winners of the trophy and arguably the number one football nation in the world, would see the team through. Ordinarily, this would have worked in a field where the quality of the other teams was not as good as what Holland, Argentina, Colombia and the eventual winners, Germany, presented. However, in this case, Brazil suffered horribly because they had failed to get the proper mixture of the interplaying ingredients right whereas Germany did and duly triumphed.
While Brazil seemed like a really bad car with only good bodywork and one or two other parts to brag about, some of the other teams were a clear example of Keke NAPEPs, hoping to triumph over Mercedes, Renault, etc, in a Formula 1 race – an absolute impossibility. From an African standpoint, no country stood any realistic chance of getting beyond the quarter-finals even if any had somehow managed to get to that stage of the competition. On paper and purely based on the collection of players at their disposal and the clubs the players ply their trade with, Africa’s best hope at the tournament were perennial underachievers, the Cote d’Ivoire. But then the Elephants, as the Ivoirians are nicknamed, are considered underachievers because even on the continent, despite having had some of the continent’s finest football players for over a decade, in recent years, the team has always flattered to deceive as evident in the damning reality that the likes of Kolo Toure, Didier Drogba and Yaya Toure still do not have an African Cup of Nations’ medal to boast about.
Invariably, assessment of Nigeria’s performance at the tournament ends up producing as many different takes as there are people willing to comment on it. On my own part, the truth is that we simply do not have the team and or players, and we have not had the type of players to really, based purely on quality, get beyond the round of 16 teams at the tournament. And I expressed same sentiments before and after the knock-out match against France on Monday, June, 30 – a match the Super Eagles lost 2 – 0, having acquitted themselves really well during the first half.
One trend to support this is the argument that from the 16 teams that had qualified from the individual groups and were pitted against each other in a group-winner-versus-group-runner-up match-up, none of the group runners-up managed to knock out any group winner. This means that all the eight group winners progressed to the quarter-finals. Certainly, it is simplistic to merely look at it in such a black-and-white manner. A few of the runner-ups surely gave their group winner opponents a tough time before getting eliminated eventually. Costa Rica, for instance, eliminated Greece on penalties after 120 minutes, same way as Brazil eliminated Chile. Mexico came agonizingly close to upsetting Holland before losing 2 -1 to two goals from the Dutch in the closing minutes and into injury time. The USA were, perhaps, even more valiant, dragging Belgium through 120 minutes of football before succumbing to a 2-1 defeat also. The two finalists did not also have things all their own way as Argentina only knocked Switzerland out having been dragged through an extra 30 minutes of football following a stalemate over 90 minutes. Germany, on the other hand, had to stave off stubborn resistance from Algeria, arguably Africa’s best, most balanced and disciplined team at the tournament. The Algerians also dragged the eventual champions through extra time before their European opponents’ extra quality eventually told. In the end, it is worthy of note that only Colombia’s 2-0 victory against Uruguay, and Nigeria’s defeat to France by a similar score line were the only straightforward affairs for any of the winners. The reality, however, was that it was no mere coincidence that, in each case, the group winner had that extra quality in fortitude, stamina, star quality or tactical know-how to overcome the challenge of a group runner-up en route the quarter-final.
• (To be continued)
