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England’s second
accomplished victory within a week may not have erased the bitter
memory of a woeful World Cup campaign but the dark clouds hanging over
coach Fabio Capello’s head are showing signs of dissipating.

Injuries and
retirements may have forced the Italian’s hand but England’s
performances in the 4-0 home win against Bulgaria and Tuesday’s 3-1 win
against Switzerland in Basel have been a breath of fresh air and even
Capello appears to be having fun.

Whether by design or by accident, England suddenly look like a team capable of shaking off years of under-achievement.

When substitute
Darren Bent rammed in England’s third goal to put Capello’s side top of
Euro 2012 qualifying Group G, his grizzled face broke into a broad
smile and he cheekily poked out his tongue at goalkeeping coach Ray
Clemence.

It was a moment of
spontaneity that matched much of the play of his team, which while
still set up in traditional 4-4-2 formation, suddenly looks to have
shed the straight-jacket that suffocated their soccer in South Africa.

Emile Heskey’s
retirement from international football and the injury to Peter Crouch
meant Capello had no option but to abandon his preference for a target
man and play Jermain Defoe in unison with a deeper-lying Wayne Rooney.

Immediately the dynamic was changed.

Long aerial passes,
of which Steven Gerrard often used to over-play, became pointless and
the emphasis was on quick incisive passing into the feet of mobile
strikers.

It worked a treat
and the only surprise was that England failed to add to the early
opener scored by Rooney – his first competitive goal for his country
for nearly a year.

Perfect display

Rooney’s vision is
wasted when he leads the line chasing down the channels and his
movement and passing against Bulgaria was a reminiscent of his
Manchester United team mate Paul Scholes at his best.

Skipper Gerrard
clearly reveled in his role too, which was more akin to the position he
plays to such effect with Liverpool and the dilemma Capello now faces
is what happens when Frank Lampard, ruled out through injury, is fit
again?

“The first half was
perfect – everything the manager asked of us,” Gerrard, who played in
the lively Adam Johnson for England’s second goal, said after the game.

“We got the game plan spot on. People were talking about how good Switzerland are, defensively, but we just tore them apart.”

Manchester City’s
Johnson, who replaced the injured Theo Walcott early on, has scored in
both Euro 2012 qualifiers and oozes composure, having stepped up from
the under 21s with fellow City player James Milner, another player to
impress.

England’s defence
coped easily without John Terry and Rio Ferdinand, although the likes
of Michael Dawson, who was injured against Bulgaria, Everton’s Phil
Jagielka and Manchester City’s Joleon Lescott will face much sterner
tests.

With England
already in a commanding position in the group, Capello will now turn
his thoughts to the visit of Montenegro next month – the Balkan side
having emerged as the unlikely challengers for top spot after also
winning their opening games.

England should now
qualify with something to spare from a group that suddenly looks very
enticing but, after all, that is the bare minimum requirement for a
coach costing the Football Association a staggering amount of money
each year.

It is when the pressure is really on and the fear of losing becomes intense that players and managers often revert to type.

So until England qualify for Euro 2012 and prove that they can also
play vibrant football against teams like Spain, Germany and the
Netherlands, when it really matters, Capello will still be shadowed by
the bitter memories of South Africa.

Nigeria’s sole
surviving representative in the CAF Champions League, Heartland FC left
for Egypt on Wednesday ahead of Sunday’s crucial tie against Al-Ahly in
Cairo. Heartland will be aiming for a win to keep their hopes of
advancing to the semi-finals of the competition alive.

Having secured
their first win of the group stage in their 2-1 win over another
Egyptian side, Ismaily, in Owerri, on August 30, Heartland know
anything less than a win against the six-time Champions League winners
will knock them out of the competition.

With Algeria’s JS
Kabylie already assured of a place in the semi-finals, with three wins
and a draw (ten points), the Naze Millionaires have to claim the second
spot to make the next round from Group B.

Free for all

The situation in
the group is dicey as a win for either Al-Ahly or Heartland on Sunday
will see the victors claiming second place, until the final round of
matches, to be held in a fortnight, when Heartland play hosts to JS
Kabylie while Ismaily take on Al-Ahly in an all Egyptian derby.

A win for Al-Ahly,
who are currently second with five points, and a loss for Ismaily on
Friday in their game against JS Kabylie, will guarantee Al-Ahly a spot
in the competition’s last four as Heartland, at present are in third
spot with four points.

An away win for the
Naze Millionaires and a loss for Ismaily, will see Heartland requiring
just a draw in their next match to secure second place. With these
scenarios at the back of their minds, Heartland’s preparations have
been in top gear ahead of Sunday’s game which the club’s assistant
coach, Emeka Ezeugo believes will not be a stroll in the park.

“We are going into
their own territory and they are not just going to sit down and watch
us win. They will try everything they can to keep us from winning. They
would be utilising every opportunity they get so we know we are in for
a tough game and therefore we should not relax,” said the former Super
Eagles midfielder.

With the team
travelling almost 4,000 kilometers from Nigeria to Egypt, jetlag and
other factors could come into play which is why the club’s management
opted to travel to Egypt on Wednesday, four days ahead of the match in
order to get the best performance out of the players.

“It is sure that travel would have its effects on them as they would
be moving to an entirely different environment. That is why they are
moving to Egypt (Wednesday) so as to get acclimatised with the new
environment.”

Defending champion Kim Clijsters held off a gritty challenge from fifth-seeded Australian Samantha Stosur,

surviving an error-filled three-set battle on Tuesday to reach the semi-finals of the U.S. Open.

With both players
struggling to hold serve in tricky winds on Arthur Ashe centre court,
the second-seeded Belgian steadied herself at the end to complete a 6-4
5-7 6-3 win that set up a showdown against American Venus Williams.

“This whole 10 days
has been really tough to get used to the weather conditions,” said
Clijsters, referencing the severe heat earlier in the tournament and
the gusting winds of late.

Mental battle

“Every match is
just a battle and mentally you just have to try and beat it.” Clijsters
stopped a string of six successive service breaks at the start of the
final set to seize a 4-3 lead before breaking Stosur again and then
holding serve to end the match.

The victory was the 19th in a row for Clijsters at Flushing Meadows, including her championship run in 2005.

Injury and then a
temporary retirement to begin a family kept her away from the
tournament until her triumphant return last year.

Williams, like
Clijsters a two-time U.S. Open winner, was a straight-sets winner over
French Open champion Francesca Schiavone in the day’s other women’s
quarter-final.

French Open
finalist Stosur, who saved four match points in defeating Russian Elena
Dementieva in the fourth round, rose up again to force a third set,
ending the last two games of the second set with forehand volleys to
win her first set ever against Clijsters after three previous career
defeats.

Stosur held serve
to end the set after three successive service breaks in winds that made
tosses difficult to manage. Clijsters made eight double faults in the
114-minute match.

The spate of
service breaks to start the third set made for nine service breaks in a
10-game span before Clijsters righted the ship.

“I was just able to be a little more aggressive in that third set,” the Belgian said.

“Although my serve wasn’t going as well as I would like it to go, I
ended up winning.” Clijsters made 43 unforced errors and Stosur, who
was up an early break in each of the sets, committed 36 in the
mistake-filled, wind-tossed match.

Venus Williams kept
the American flag fluttering at the U.S. Open on Tuesday when she beat
French Open champion Francesca Schiavone 7-6 6-4 to become the first
player through to the semi-finals.

Williams, promoted
to third seed this year after her sister and world number one Serena
withdrew with an injury, provided a dazzling display that matched her
sparkling pink dress to reach the last four for the eighth time in 12
years at New York.

It has been nine
years since she won her second successive title at Flushing Meadows but
her form over the past nine days has given rise to the belief that a
third crown could be on the horizon.

Her win came
immediately after the host-nation’s already slim prospects of winning
the men’s title were extinguished when Sam Querrey lost a centre court
thriller to Switzerland’s Stanislas Wawrinka.

The pair slugged it
out for almost four and a half hours, putting the match programme hours
behind, before Wawrinka, who upset Britain’s Andy Murray in the third
round, prevailed 7-6 6-7 7-5 4-6 6-4.

“I left it all out
there today and I didn’t get to the quarters,” said an exhausted and
deflated Querrey. “I’m bummed, but I did everything I could.”

Wawrinka’s next opponent is Russian 12th seed Mikhail Youzhny, who slipped quietly through his section of the draw.

He earned his place
in the last eight with a convincing 7-5 6-2 4-6 6-4 win over Tommy
Robredo, one of five Spanish men left in the top half of the draw.

Semi-finals certain for Spain

The remaining four,
headed by Rafa Nadal, are all in the same quarter, ensuring Spain will
be represented in the men’s semi-finals on Saturday.

Defending women’s
champion Kim Clijsters was due to play Australia’s Samantha Stosur in
the first of the two feature night matches at Arthur Ashe Stadium
before Nadal squared off with countryman Feliciano Lopez.

Helpless Schiavone
Schiavone, who became the first Italian woman to win a grand slam
singles title when she won at Paris in June, could not match the power
of Williams but provided the former world number one with some awkward
moments by mixing up her game in the windy conditions.

She came from 4-2
down to force a first set tiebreak then twice came from behind in the
second set to get back to 5-4 when her serve let her down and Williams
broke to wrap it up in straight sets.

“She played a great match,” Williams said in a courtside interview.
“It’s not easy to play in these conditions, it’s hard to know what
decisions to make, but she played excellent.”

Real Madrid’s
income rose 8.6 per cent from 407.3 million to 442.3 million euros in
the 2009/10 season, the Spanish club said in a statement on Wednesday.

The nine-times
European Cup winners were the first team in any sport to post revenues
in excess of 400 million euros in a single year, accountancy firm
Deloitte said in their most recent survey of the world’s richest soccer
clubs back in March.

Real reported their
net profit had risen 11.5 per cent to 24 million euros, and that their
net debt had shrunk from 326.7 million to 244.6 million euros.

The club did not
give a figure for total debt but a survey carried out by University of
Barcelona professor Jose Maria Gay published in May said it stood just
below 700 million euros at the end of the 2008/9 season.

Real suffered a
trophyless campaign in the last two seasons being beaten to the La Liga
title by arch-rivals Barcelona, but appear to be in a healthier
financial position.

In August, new
Barca president Sandro Rosell posted accounts which showed that
although the Catalan club’s income had risen to 408.9 million euros,
they had suffered a post-tax loss of 77.1 million euros.

Their net debt was
listed as having swelled to 442 million euros, and Gay’s survey listed
their total debt as being 489 million at the end of the 2008/9 season.

Deloitte rated Barca as the world’s second richest club by revenue, behind Real Madrid.

Top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark elicited a barrel full of errors from former champion Maria Sharapova to post a 6-3 6-4 victory on Monday and advance to the quarter-finals of the U.S. Open.

Wozniacki, runner-up last year to Kim Clijsters, showed poise and patience as she engaged the Russian 14th seed in rallies and waited for mistakes, which came on ground strokes from both wings and frequently on the Russian’s serves.

Sharapova, 23, also slugged her share of winners, belting 32, mostly from her powerful forehand, but she gave more than that away on errors in a hard-fought match that produced great shots and some scintillating exchanges.

Three-time grand slam winner Sharapova, the 2006 U.S. Open champion, committed 36 unforced errors including nine double faults, two of which closed service breaks against her.

Tough match

“It was a real tough match,” the 20-year-old Wozniacki told the Arthur Ashe center court crowd after blowing kisses to the fans and showing off her bright yellow fingernails. “Maria is a great player so I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

Wozniacki, who had only lost three games in her first three victories, said her ride to the final last year helped her deal with the pressure of facing former world number one Sharapova.

“I got a lot of experience from last year, so it definitely helped me in the match today.” The Dane took the upper hand in the first set in the fourth game when Sharapova, leading 40-30, double-faulted three times in a row to give Wozniacki a 3-1 lead.

Sharapova poured herself into the seventh game, hauling herself back into the set on her sixth break point to make it 4-3.

Perhaps exhausted by the effort, the Russian gave the break right back at love in the next game and Wozniacki clinched the set against the battling Sharapova on her third set point.

The only service break of the second set came in the seventh game when Wozniacki took a 4-3 lead on another double fault from the Russian.

Sharapova, crushing forehands, saved a match point to hold serve at 5-4, but Wozniacki rose up with her first volley winner and followed with a sizzling backhand to close out the match on her serve.

The victory put the 20-year-old Dane into the quarters against Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia, at 45th the lowest ranked player remaining in the women’s draw.

Taju Disu, a former Nigerian footballer has said the annulment of the Nigerian Football Federation elections, held in August, is a sign of better days ahead for the country’s football.

A Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos had given an order restraining the FA from going ahead with the elections pending the hearing and determination of a motion filed by the Registered Trustees of the National Association of Nigerian Footballers (NANF).

The elections nevertheless took place on August 26 in Abuja with Aminu Maigari emerging as the new FA boss.

High Court judge, Okon Abang however nullified the election on Monday and described the conduct of the FA officials and its electoral committee as reckless and high-handed, while also maintaining that as far as the court was concerned, no election took place in Abuja.

Victory for football

“This is a victory for democracy and football,” said Disu, a staunch opponent of the August 26 election and who also went to court to stop the election.

“This is not a victory for Taju Disu, Segun Odegbami, Harrison Jalla or every other person who fought against the election, but a victory for every lover of football in Nigeria.

“Some people thought they were above the law and decided to go against a court order, but I’m happy they have been brought down to earth from their exalted positions and will now realise that everybody is beneath the law.”

The court also directed the Inspector-General of Police to ensure that none of those elected into the FA’s executive committee in the purported August 26 election gains entry into NFF’s offices in Abuja and Lagos and ordered that the most senior administrative staff member of the FA should take charge of the affairs of the association pending the conduct of a proper election to the board.

Contempt of court

The presiding judge further ordered that contempt proceeding should commence against all those who conducted the election. The contempt hearing will start on September 21 and Disu is delighted with the move.

“It’s a good thing they have been charged for contempt of court. I don’t know what they were thinking, or did they think they were going to get away with it?” he asked. “But I still think football should be run by those who have the knowledge of how to do it.

“A lot of us have shed blood, sweat and tears for football and this country but we have watched helplessly as politicians who are only interested in stealing money, killed the game we love so much. Football is actually dead in this country but we now have a fresh chance to raise it up from the dead.”

I am fervently
asking God for the grace, to address this issue of restitution
adequately between now and October 1, 2010, when by the very special
grace of God, we would be celebrating our 50th anniversary as a nation.
I know from experience that genuine restitution bears with it some
degree of excruciating pain, and this is why human beings avoid it.

But believe me, I
also know that after the pain involved in restitution, not the fake
one, comes the gain – which usually is always of unquantifiable benefit
to all involved in the act of restitution.

No preparation to revive sports

To discontinue
reaping the fruits of shame, ineptitude, corruption, demonic covenants,
age falsification that is grossly affecting the development of millions
of youngsters, who are supposed to be groomed as Nigeria’s future
leaders on the platform of sports, restitution has to be done. It will
eliminate fraud, favouritism, moral decadence, drug abuse, violence,
winning at all cost, negligence and all other social vices that have
been sown as seeds in Nigerian sports. Lest I forget, the latest of
such evil, are the intense disdain, insult and disregard of the laws by
representatives of FIFA and the goon squad representing them in Nigeria.

Sunday, September 5
saw me in Abeokuta, capital of Ogun State, Nigeria, to watch the
opening game of the U-17 International football competition organised
by the Pepsi Academy of Nigeria, under the supervision of Kashimawo
Laloko. I was on my way back to Lagos after the opening ceremony to
watch the Nigeria versus Madagascar match, but became double-minded on
sighting a bus conveying players of the Liberty Professionals Academy
from Ghana, driving on the opposite side of the road towards Abeokuta.
I then had to make a choice between heading home to watch the Eagles,
hoping that they would be super this time around, or making a U-turn to
Abeokuta. I chose to make the U-turn, since I have uncompromisingly
committed myself to such age-grade grassroots football development. I
have no doubt that I made the right choice, but whether I derived
anything positive remains a big doubt.

Anomie and too much pressure

Apart from the poor
level of officiating at the games, there was so much pressure on the
young lads from the coaches. The question is – when do we begin to see
exceptional dribbling skills, ball juggling and through passes,
displayed by our age grade football players? The foundation we are
laying is very weak. I left the M.K.O. stadium, feeling very
uncomfortable and disappointed. I kept on asking myself the question –
“where do we go from here”?

Another observation
had to do with the number children spectators – for whom these football
matches are organised. I was shocked to see a population of less than
100 and a 100 adults. Well, was this new to me? No, I saw a worse
situation in Lagos during the recent Lagos Youth Championship football
competition. The question is why should this be so? What can be
responsible for empty stadiums during age-grade football competitions?
The answers are simple and several. No right thinking parent for
instance will allow his/her ward go watch matches in Nigerian stadiums
that have been taken over by social miscreants and other forms of
gangsters. It is no longer strange to those who are bold enough to risk
going to any stadium in Nigeria to see drugs being hawked, sold and
consumed with such reckless abandon, even in the presence of security
agents.

I got home to be confronted by another anomie; the FIFA U-17 Women’s
World Cup, going on in Trinidad and Tobago. Nigeria played against
North Korea. As a patriotic Nigerian and football coach, I decided to
watch the game, but forgot absolutely that my daughters, at home on
holidays would also watch. It would have been okay if the commentators
had not mentioned the ages of the “women” representing Nigeria. One of
them was my student in the Brazilian Soccer School, about 5 years ago
and she was introduced aged 14. One of my daughters watching the match
is an SS3 student; what kind of example are we setting for the
young(er) ones? May God forgive this nation? Please say a very loud
Amen.

I usually do not
get calls during church service on Sundays. In fact, to ensure I do not
fall prey to the temptation of receiving or making calls, I hand the
phone to someone to hold for me.

On this particular
Sunday I handed the phone to my wife and promptly concentrated on the
ministration going on. Around 9am or thereabouts, I was nudged by one
of our ushers who later told me my wife wanted to see me.

When I got to her,
she told me that my friend Ken Ochonogor had called. It was surprising
because even though in the years I have known him he has called me at
different times of the day and different days of the week, he had never
called me on a Sunday morning.

On instinct I decided to return the call suspecting that he must have a very important reason for calling.

What I heard nearly knocked me out.

“You hear say Emeka
Enechi don die? Uncle T (Tayo Balogun, Vice Chairman of Lagos State
Sports Council) just called to tell me that Emeka died this morning”.
He proceeded to give details of what happened but I wasn’t listening.
What I kept hearing was: “You hear say Emeka Enechi don die?” The words
hit me like a sledge hammer. Emeka dead? It was unbelievable.

If you asked me to
point out a 100 people I thought will die the next minute, Enechi will
not figure among them. Why? He was so full of life; so vibrant that you
thought he would live to be over a hundred years old. Sadly, at 40
years, his journey had ended.

Quite tragic
indeed. It is made even more heart wrenching when you realise that here
was an individual who was involved in an automobile accident in which
the vehicle somersaulted several times and he sustained only a slight
injury on one of his hands; he told friends and colleagues he was okay
and then died a few days later because the medical personnel who
treated him were careless and failed to administer anti-tetanus
injection! It is simply unbelievable for an individual so full of life
to exit this world in such a manner. I It will take quite a while for
this to sink in for most of us related with him on a personal level.

A jolly good fellow

Emeka was
everybody’s friend. As we say in Nigeria he was ‘like water wey no get
enemy’. He was one of those rare breed who would go the extra mile to
help. I remember in January this year, I was in Abuja ready to go to
the Angolan embassy to apply for visa to cover the Africa Cup of
Nations; for some reason, I did not have an accreditation from CAF to
cover the event.

I called Emeka, who
incidentally was in Abuja for the same reason and asked him to see if
Suleiman Habuba, CAF’s media man, can assist. Emeka readily agreed and
tried repeatedly to get Habuba on phone. When his efforts failed, he
told me to go ahead and take my chance at the embassy and added that if
I managed to make it to Angola he would ensure that Habuba looked into
my case.

There many sides to
Emeka, fondly called ‘Biafra’ by friends and associates, made him such
an interesting individual. One of the remarkable things about him was
that he was carefree to the extent of being forgetful. In Japan where
he had gone to cover the 2002 FIFA World Cup jointly hosted with South
Korea, he forgot his wallet containing nearly all the money he took to
that country and his passport at the airport. Somehow, they managed to
track him down and returned everything to him intact.

He was not so lucky
however this year when we went to Ghana for the Globacom/CAF African
footballer of the Year Awards. We were already in the vehicle conveying
us to the hotel when Emeka strolled up to the vehicle imploring us to
wait for him while he goes back into the airport to search for his
missing wallet. He didn’t find it in the end but that didn’t dampen his
spirits in any way.

I will miss Emeka a great deal. I used to call him chairman after
his stint as chairman of the Lagos state chapter of the Sports writers
association of Nigeria (SWAN). Indeed, it was during his tenure that I
came to appreciate him more because although some people ganged up
against him, eventually making it difficult for him to return for a
second term, he bore no grudges. To the very end he remained the easy
going and jolly fellow that he was.