Nigeria Content Online

At
the Mainz 05 Stadium on Friday, October 30, 2010, there was an air of
expectation as four Nigerian journalists, Adekunle Salami, Tony
Nezianya, Christian Okpara and this reporter strolled into the
conference room of the Bundesliga Club.

The journalists,
who were in Germany courtesy of SuperSport and at the invitation of the
DFL, organisers of the Bundesliga, the German football league, arrived
the conference late. But it didn’t really matter to them.

As they listened to
Thomas Tuchel, Mainz coach, talk in German about the match they had in
two days time against former champions, Borrusia Dortmund, their mind
was on the diminutive fellow, they had really come to see.

Once the briefing
ended, they turned to Katja Beck and Kay Langendorff, the two
Bundesliga officials, who had led them to the stadium. Langendorff
disappears and moments later returns with the object of the
journalists’ interest. Haruna Babangida, younger brother of Tijani
Babangida, the former Super Eagles winger stood smiling at the
journalists. “You guys are from Nigeria?” he asked and added: “It’s
nice to see people from home.

At 28 years old, Babangida has traversed Europe playing in leagues such as the La Liga, Greek, Ukranian,

Cypriot and Dutch
Eredevise where he played for top clubs like Ajax and Barcelona before
moving to the Bundesliga in June this year. It had come as something of
a surprise to see the former Barcelona FC of Spain player popping up in
the Bundesliga for the apple cart upsetting Mainz.

So, how has it been at Mainz? “Everything is okay,” he says.

“Things are very
easy here because in Mainz we have more foreigners than Germans in the
team. If you take a good look at the team you will find that most of
the players are foreigners.

You have South
Americans who speak Spanish and I communicate with them because I can
speak Spanish. As for the other players in the squad, they speak
English and so I can communicate with them.

Even though he is
having a good time in Mainz, Babangida, who was a member of Nigeria’s
1999 U-20 World Cup team, is not altogether fulfilled.

The reason for that
is not difficult to fathom. Since joining the wave-making Bundesliga
club in June he has played just once and then succumbed to injury,
which sidelined him for months. He is back to fitness now but has yet
to start enjoying playing time, a development he finds uncomfortable.

“It’s not easy even
when the team is not winning for a player not to be playing. For a
player like me, I have gotten used to playing all the time. In all the
teams I have played for, I always played. But here I am not playing
now; of course as a football player you’ll be happy when your team is
winning but what I want, and the reason I came to Mainz is to try to
play.

“Now, I am fit and
I am training with the team but it is the trainer who decides every
week who plays. For me, the thing is to keep working hard. I have
between now and December …Anyway, I can’t really say anything about
my future. All I know is that I am working hard and for now, I am still
a Mainz player, he said.”

Losing respect

One of the reasons
he is eager to break into the first team is his desire to play for the
Super Eagles. After being capped in 2003 in a friendly match against
Japan, the door of the national team has been closed to him.

“I am a Nigerian
and as long as I continue to play football, I will always look forward
to playing for the Super Eagles. That is the ambition of every Nigerian
player.”

Even though he
harbours the hope of starring for his country someday, Babangida
believes that things are not okay with the team, which he says used to
strike fear into its opponents in the past.

“We don’t have the
respect we used to have. In those days when my brother was playing, if
they wanted to play a team like Guinea for instance, he’ll tell me that
they (the Eagles) will win by 6-0. At the end of the day, they may end
up winning 8-0. Then they had a good team and they selected the right
players but now, it’s totally different. We still have good players but
selection and interest from some quarters create problems for us.

“We have players
playing in Europe and even in Nigeria. We just need direction. There
are too many interests involved-the government, the NFA and others.

That’s why things are not going well,” he said.

For the moment, he is content to work hard to succeed in the
Bundesliga, which he says thrives on a combination of power and skill.