Nigeria Content Online

The opening
ceremony of the first World Cup to be held in Africa did not
disappoint: Soccer City in Johannesburg came alive with the vibrant
sounds of Africa. The richness of the continent’s culture was allowed
to shine through without subjecting us to the stereotypical African
fare.

Especially loved
the large pieces of African fabric held up to make a map of our
wonderfully diverse continent. With that as a prelude, one was rather
expecting some excitement afterwards. It’s early days yet but the
tournament so far seems to be lacking a certain ‘je ne sais quoi.’ It’s
bad enough that a large number of fan favourites are injured or
half-fit, add one too many drab draws from the ongoing first round and
the overall picture won’t convert football sceptics anytime soon. Hosts
South Africa managed to surrender a slender one-goal lead to Mexico,
breaking the hearts of vuvuzela-tooting fans nationwide.

Holland needed an
own goal from Denmark to jumpstart their campaign while Algeria and
Cameroon completed a hat trick of African teams to lose their opening
games, leaving Ghana to restore African pride. Even Germany beating
Australia by four goals failed to lift the spirits as it started to
feel a little like watching a minor friendly match. Italy in Group F
salvaged their pride to draw with Paraguay and underdogs New Zealand
scored a late goal to draw in their match against Slovakia. We almost
wish for a 3-yellow card fiasco, à la Graham Poll, to liven things up.
High expectations for big name players such as Didier Drogba, Cristiano
Ronaldo, Leo Messi, Wayne Rooney and Samuel Eto’o have so far come to
nothing. Between them they have scored a total of zero goals. These are
not encouraging statistics although Drogba may be excused as he only
came on as a substitute. As for Brazil, not only did they fail to score
in the first half of their first game against North Korea, their first
goal came from Maicon, a defender. These are indeed disturbing times. I
was asked if the problem might be the Jabulani – the official football
of the finals, but I hesitate to join the legion of cynics on this as I
have not had a chance to kick said ball in a competitive match.

Remembering Roger Milla

I have fond
memories of Roger Milla’s celebratory dance, debuted in Italia ‘90. The
same tournament that saw Cameroon emerge as the first African team to
reach the quarter finals of a World Cup and Salvatore Schillachi
showcase his scoring talent. USA ‘94 came next, where Nigeria made a
first appearance. Remember colourful (literally) characters like
Mexico’s goalkeeper, Jorge Campos, and Bulgaria’s Hristo Stoichkov
leading the team to a fourth place finish. Then there was the Oleg
Salenko goal rain against Cameroon and Roberto Baggio’s missed penalty
in the final. Remember Sunday Oliseh’s goal in ‘98? How about Senegal
defeating France in 2002? We’re still watching the first round matches
and I am full of hope that things will pick up and we’ll get something
close to the atmosphere of previous mundials.

Could this be
linked to the Super Eagles’ loss to Argentina? On that day, we saw one
goalkeeper’s heroics and another’s humiliation. Vincent Enyeama was the
universal man of the match while England’s Rob Green was the opposite
of his Nigerian counterpart. There are calls for Enyeama to leave his
club in Israel for one in Europe but I feel he should stay put lest he
signs for a successful European club and becomes too big for his
football boots, leaving us without a disciplined shot stopper.

We face Greece later today and we are cheering on our boys to win the match. Go Super Eagles!