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I had mentioned one
drab football derby last week, between Real Madrid and Barcelona.
Fervently hoping that neither the Manchester nor London Derby would be
as tame, I organised a mini gathering at my house. Manchester City had
enough motivation to beat United; they are chasing a Champions League
spot, have also lost three times to United this season and would have
wanted a chance to finally kill off the Red Devils’ title hopes. As
with any tangle of neighbours, emotions run high among fans and players
and the media will tend to stoke the fire of rivalry.

Therefore, it was all about the Carlos Tevez-Gary Neville incident from their last meeting.

At Old Trafford in
the first half of the season, Michael Owen had scored the winner deep
into injury time and that was the talking point. Coming on the back of
a draw with Blackburn, a seemingly less than fit Wayne Rooney and again
no Rio in defence, City appeared to have the personnel advantage.
Former Red, Tevez seems annoyingly able to score against his former
employers.

Adebayor was also back, having missed the last meeting.

The stage was set
for an exciting clash. Perhaps in Fantasy Football: In reality, both
sides made very little use of any possession of the ball. I am happy to
report that the trio of Tevez,

Adebayor and
Bellamy threatened more in my imagination than on the pitch. Some end
to end football followed while arguments broke out between rival
supporters at our impromptu viewing centre.

Truly, that was more exciting than the game. Just when we thought it would end in a goalless stalemate,

Patrice Evra sent a
cross into the penalty area and Paul Scholes buried it in the second
minute of added time! There is still a dent in the furniture as
evidence of my celebration. Scholes recently signed a new one year
extension at United. Admittedly, I was sceptical of this at the time as
there are quite a few aging thirty-something players at the club but
the veteran has showed us that there’s something to be said for
balancing youth with experience. Arsene Wenger might want to take note
of this.

We then moved on to
the London derby between Spurs and Chelsea. Harry Redknapp has worked
wonders with the then relegation-threatened club that he inherited. I
swiftly became a Spurs fan for 90 minutes, hoping that they would do
United the favour of beating Chelsea.

A Chelsea defeat
would close the gap to one point and leave a glimmer of hope for a
record fourth consecutive premier league crown. I hadn’t seriously
thought a Spurs victory was likely but as the game unfolded with
Chelsea looking out of sorts, the improbable became probable; by half
time, Spurs were leading. John Terry was sent off for two bookable
offences and I held my breath until the match ended in United’s (sorry,
Spurs’) favour. Oh, the Beautiful Game! It certainly throws up
surprises.

It’s so good to be
able to gloat for a while. A good-sized novel would be too small to
accommodate the overconfident boasts of the Chelsea fans. They were
duly silenced and long may it last.

At this point, we
would like to thank everyone at White Hart Lane for their assistance
and wish them success in their games, but only after tomorrow. Yes
you’ve guessed it, United host Spurs.

Here’s hoping the
North Londoners will suffer from complacency after beating Arsenal and
Chelsea back to back… and that Stoke will prove very stubborn at
Stamford Bridge.

When Argentinian
coach, Diego Maradona, named the players that will face the Super
Eagles on June 12 at Ellis Park, in the South Africa 2010 FIFA World
Cup, the inclusion of Lionel Messi in the list and other players with
intimidating pedigree like : Romero, Otamendi, Demichelis, Samuel,
Heinze, Jonas, Veron, Mascherano, Di Maria, Higuain or Tevez, did not
strike fear in the mind of Nigerians like it used to.

After a splendid
performance in the Spanish La Liga and brilliant performance against
Arsenal in the UEFA Champions League, the fear of Messi was the
beginning of wisdom for Nigerian players and fans. It got so bad that
Nigerians, who had seen Messi make a fool of the most exalted
defenders, were praying that the smallish Argentinian gets injured
before the World Cup. But thanks to Serie A giant, Inter Milan, Messi,
who looked unstoppable before now, appeared like a mere mortal when
Barcelona played Inter at the San Siro last Tuesday.

Inter defenders,
Maicon, Javier Zanetti, Walter Samuel, Lucio, and defensive midfielder,
Esteban Cambiasso, taught the Super Eagles defenders a lesson on how to
stop Messi. Will our boys stop Messi on June 12? Probably yes, most
probably no. But at least, we know he is stoppable, and that is
cheering news for many of us.

Bad news

Save for the above,
it has been a harvest of bad news. When Colleen Dardagan, a colleague
who I met during the FIFA and LOC of South Africa 2010 FIFA World Cup
tour of 11 venues for championship, called me last Wednesday, I taught
she had got a cheap place for me to stay in Durban. Rather, Dardagan
was calling in respect of the Hampshire Hotel in Ballito where the
Eagles will stay during the World Cup.

After a tour of the
hotel, and interview with the management and officials of the NFF,
Dardagan came to one conclusion: the reason why NFF officials opted for
the hotel was because FIFA will give them $400 for each player, and
they have decided to get an hotel where they will pay $200 for two
players. Thus, they will be pocketing a minimum of $600 daily on each
of the room the players will be staying, since they will be staying two
in a room. This conclusion, coming from a South African colleague, is
not cheering news.

Before the
unpleasant news from Dardagan, the only Nigerian player playing for
high profile club in Europe and who is playing regularly, John Mikel
Obi, was injured in club Chelsea 2-1 loss to Tottenham at White Hart
Lane.

That Mikel will be
out for at least three weeks after tearing a meniscus in his knee is
sad news. Said Mikel, “Its a little tear in the knee meniscus. I won’t
play this weekend, and the doctors say it will take about three weeks
to heal, although there will be no surgery.” Mikel, who was named in
the Super Eagles provisional World Cup squad of 44 players, assured
Nigerians that he will be ready for the World Cup: “I will be in the
camp. It is very important for all of us as players to get together,
even if there is no match. I am always proud to play for my country,
and it is an honour to be called up to join the team.” Despite these
sweet words from Mikel, many of us are still worried.

Blunder and more blunders

One is not sure of
who to blame, whether the NFF or coach Lars Lagerback, but the planned
meeting with the 44 players invited for World Cup may not hold, as many
European clubs are reported to have written to the NFF that invited
players will not be at the meeting.

The meeting, slated
for two days in London, may now be cancelled. “We may have to cancel
the meeting in the interest of the players’ careers and their
relationship with their clubs. We are naturally very disappointed, but
we do not want to cause any friction between them,” a federation
official told Kickoff.

But what will one
say of NFF not getting visa for its six home- based stars expected at
the meeting. Haba, NFF! Getting visa for players is not rocket science.

If you add the above to FIFA’s warning on NPL election, April is surely a month of bad news for football.

Sworn enemies were
forced to think the unthinkable in the Premier League on Saturday with
fierce foes cheering on hated rivals through gritted teeth.

Manchester City
fans endured the torture of hoping neighbours Manchester United win at
Old Trafford against Tottenham Hotspur, whose fans in turn were praying
north London rivals Arsenal beat City at the Emirates.

Chelsea, beaten at
Tottenham last week, would have been happy to see Spurs add United to
their list of illustrious victims at a crucial point in the
championship chase.

Liverpool’s red army, with their team in action at relegation-threatened Burnley on Sunday, hardly knew who to cheer or curse.

A victory for local foes United, particularly one taking them closer to the title, is rarely palatable on Merseyside.

But a win for
fourth-placed Tottenham, battling City for a place in the Champions
League next season, would have been another blow to Liverpool’s fading
hopes of returning to Europe’s elite competition next season.

“Today, I support
Arsenal,” declared one fan on the supporters forum on the Tottenham
website (www.tottenhamhotspurs.tv). “Hope they win, let’s pray.” “I
think ‘support’ is the wrong word,” wrote another. “I just want City to
lose”.

In the end, there
were mixed feelings. Arsenal drew, but ended up mathematically out of
contention for the title. Tottenham lost 3-1 but stayed fourth a point
ahead of City.

Few chances

The only clear
winners were the United crowd, whose team took a two-point lead over
Chelsea with two games remaining and enjoyed the discomfort of the
light blue half of the City.

With Tottenham
still to visit City at Eastlands and Arsenal’s title hopes all but
over, the focus on and off the pitch in Saturday’s late game was the
battle for fourth place.

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger suggested City had played for a draw with the future fixture in mind.

“I believe they
made a different calculation. They think that if they get a point here
and beat Tottenham at home, they will get above them,” he told
reporters after the stalemate. “That is how I explain it.

“It was an
afternoon that I’m not used to because we created very few chances and
Man City didn’t create anything,” added the Frenchman.

“They were highly focused on defending well, they didn’t give us any space and we didn’t find the opening.

It was a locked
game basically.” Arsenal fans could at least amuse themselves, on an
afternoon full of changed loyalties, by booing their former favourite
Emmanuel Adebayor every time the City striker touched the ball.

By contrast,
defender Kolo Toure – who appeared after the match in an Arsenal shirt
after swapping with former team mate Abou Diaby – and ex-Arsenal
captain Patrick Vieira were cheered on their return.

Tottenham supporters could also feel gratified that, even if their
team had lost, their ex-marksman Dimitar Berbatov had at least fired
blanks against them.

On Sunday, the Indian Premier League, a wildly successful professional cricket empire with a huge fan following,

holds the final game of its third season.

Whichever team wins – the Mumbai Indians or the Chennai Super Kings – the big loser could be the man who created the league.

On Monday, league
officials are expected to try to oust that executive, Lalit Kumar Modi,
who has been the league’s commissioner since its founding but has
become embroiled in a scandal that has also brought down a senior
government official.

The game has changed

In the past few
years, the IPL has transformed cricket in India from a gentlemanly
sport of tea breaks and daylong matches into a fast-paced, $4
billion-a-year industry hailed as a fitting symbol of India’s rise as
an economic power. The league’s financial and media success was mostly
attributed to Modi.

But a raging scandal, which has exposed a web entangling sports, politics and business in this country, threatens to end
Modi’s winning streak. It might also dash his aspirations for building
the IPL into what he recently called the “single largest league of the
world.”

What started as a
public spat between Modi and a senior lawmaker has quickly evolved into
an investigation by India’s tax authorities into the league’s financial
affairs. The revelations so far suggest that cricket has succumbed to
the same kinds of cronyism and corruption that affect many other parts
of Indian economics and politics.

“We haven’t seen
something as high-profile, as wide-ranging, where the numbers are as
big, in my lifetime,” said Jayaditya Gupta, executive editor of
Cricinfo, a website that tracks the sport.

Earlier this week
Shashi Tharoor, a former top U.N. diplomat, was forced to resign as
junior minister of foreign affairs in the Indian government. That
happened after Modi revealed that a group of businessmen whom Tharoor
had advised as they prepared a winning $333 million bid for a new
cricket league franchise had then given a female friend of Tharoor’s a
free minority stake in their new team.

Vested interests

Tharoor has denied
wrongdoing, saying he merely “mentored” the businessmen so they would
base the team in his home state, Kerala. The winning group, Tharoor
said, gave an ownership slice of less than 5 percent to his friend,
Sunanda Pushkar, separately as payment for her marketing services.

Meanwhile, income
tax agents this week searched the IPL’s headquarters, a suite at the
Four Seasons Hotel in Mumbai where Modi works, as well as the offices
of the league’s eight original teams. The finance minister, Pranab
Mukherjee, promised Parliament a thorough investigation.

The inquiry
includes offshore shell companies through, which shares in the teams
are held. Critics have long asserted that team owners are using these
legal entities to obscure their ownership.

Even before the
scandal surfaced it had become apparent that at least some of the teams
were partly owned by the people responsible for overseeing the league,
or by their families.

The husband of
Modi’s wife’s sister, for instance, owns a big stake in the Rajasthan
Royals franchise. A company controlled by the husband of Modi’s
stepdaughter owns rights to show league games on the Internet and
mobile phones, and he holds a stake in another team, the Kings XI
Punjab. Other sports officials involved in overseeing the league also
own teams.

In an interview,
Modi, 46, denied that he had done anything wrong. He said his relatives
invested in the IPL three years ago because they had faith in him.

“In the beginning,
nobody wanted to come in,” he said as he smoked a Dunhill cigarette on
a terrace of the Grand Hyatt Hotel here. “All the people who came in
were friends and family who believed in the idea. The entire media said
this was a lousy investment, it’s not going to work.”

Even his critics
acknowledged that Modi, who previously helped bring ESPN and Disney to
India as their local partner, had succeeded where others had failed.

Cricket is as
important to Indians as basketball, football and baseball combined are
to Americans. But officials who oversaw the sport were never able to
fully exploit its appeal.

Modi said when he
first joined the organisation that oversaw the sport, the Board of
Control for Cricket in India, it collected just $300,000 in revenue per
match, primarily from ticket sales and broadcasting rights.

Now, he said, each
of the 56 league games a season brings in an average of $30 million.
Games attract audiences of 20,000 to 55,000 depending on the stadium.
On television, the current season has reached about 138 million
viewers, up from 121 million last year, according to TAM Media Research.

The cricket board,
a nonprofit organisation that is often run by politicians but is not an
arm of the government, began aggressively promoting cricket after
Sharad Pawar became its president in 2005. Besides being a government
minister, Pawar runs an important regional political party. As
president of the cricket board, he authorized Modi, who had proposed a
city-based league in the early 1990s, to start the IPL.

Modi’s flamboyant
promotion of the league, complete with red-carpet celebrities and
foreign cheerleaders, many from Eastern Europe and Australia, attracted
the wealthy and powerful to cricket.

Getting carried away

Mukesh Ambani, the
country’s richest man, bought the Mumbai Indians franchise. The
country’s most popular movie actor, Shah Rukh Khan, took a big stake in
the Kolkata Knight Riders and cheers them on from the sidelines of
every game.

Sony, which
broadcasts IPL’s two-month season on cable and satellite, is paying
$1.6 billion for the rights for nine years. Earlier this year, the
highest bid in an auction for two new teams was $370 million – up from
the top bid of $112 million three years ago when the first eight teams
were sold.

While Modi claims the league is profitable, he and his patrons refuse to disclose financial statements.

Contracts for
Internet rights have been negotiated in private, rather than being bid
out in auctions. And the league has often forced changes to the terms
of auctions and contracts once they were under way.

“There is a feeling
that the IPL is a wonderful economic mammoth that has been created,”
said Prem Panicker, a veteran Indian writer who has followed cricket
for many years. “But much of it is smoke and mirrors.”

In a television
interview, one Indian cricket official brushed off the more existential
questions about the league but acknowledged that the board had done a
poor job supervising it.

“We should have
been aware of what was happening,” Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, a member
of the board’s governing council, told NDTV. “The fact that we didn’t
question anything is because we were carried away with how well
everything was going.”

2010 New York Times News Service

Reigning Nigerian
champion in both the 100m and 200m, Obinna Metu, failed to make it to
the podium at the IAAF Grand Prix held in Dakar over the weekend as he
finished 4th in the 100m and 5th in the 200m finals at the athletics
event.

In the 100m event, Metu finished with a time of 10.41sec, while he returned a time of 21.57sec in the 200m.

Flash in the pan

Metu took the
Nigerian tracks by storm as he emerged the fastest man en-route
qualification for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, defeating the African
record holder, Olusoji Fasuba. He however did not make it beyond the
second round of the 100m event at the Olympics.

Another Nigerian
athlete on parade; Saul Weigpowa finished fifth in the 400m event in a
time of 47.88secs in a race won by Africa’s record holder, Gary Kigaya.

The likes of Obinna
Metu, Adetoye Durotoye, Damola Osayomi and other sprinters have proved
to be flashes in the pan; they will win at home and on the continent
with fanfare, but at the Olympics and World Championships, they always
turn flat-footed.

Another chance

With Nigerian
athletes billed to compete again at the Africa Championships in Kenya
and the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India later this year, they
would have to step up their pace if they hope to make any impact at the
events.

Already, the
Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) says its newly organised Golden
League Meet is meant to put the athletes in shape for the upcoming
events.

At the last leg of
the League held in Ibadan, the AFN president; Solomon Ogba explained
that the league was structured such that the athletes would be hitting
their peak form towards the National trials (Mobil track and field
Championships) been proposed for Calabar by June.

“It’s been a good start so far, I believe most of them should be hitting peak form by the last leg in Warri,” he said.

The winner of at least five legs out of the proposed six is expected to have a share of a N1 million naira jackpot up for grabs.

Currently, Ogho-Oghene Egwero leads the pack among those jostling for the jackpot.

Metu failed to
comment on his performance at Dakar, and brushed aside questions about
his non-participation in the AFN Golden League. He expressed scepticism
about the federation’s ability to pay since they were still owing him
his ticket refund to the last Mobil Track and field championship in
Abuja.

After being away
from competitive football for seven months, Nigerian striker Ikechukwu
Uche finally made a long awaited return to action in last weekend’s
Spanish league encounter between Real Zaragoza and Real Madrid.

The Super Eagles
star joined Zaragoza from Getafe prior to the commencement of the
season but only made a paltry number of appearances (two) for Zaragoza
before damaging the cruciate knee ligament in his left knee last
September in a 4-1 defeat to Sevilla.

Unexpected move

So last Saturday’s
encounter against Real Madrid at the Estadio La Romareda was only his
third appearance of the season, but it was an appearance that seemed to
had emerged right out of the blues as many didn’t expect the Nigerian
international to make an immediate return to action so soon after
recovering from a career threatening injury.

“I guess a lot of
people will be surprised that I played but I trained hard in the days
leading up to the match and I guess I did enough to impress the coach
(Jose Aurelio Gay),” he said.

Zaragoza were a man
down but still level on scoring terms (1-1) with their more illustrious
adversaries by the time Uche came in to take the place of midfielder
Ander Herrera in the 75th minute of play.

A goal by Madrid’s
Brazilian superstar, Kaka, eight minutes from time however decided the
encounter in favour of the former Spanish and European champions and
ruined the day for Zaragoza. But it wasn’t enough to ruin the day for
Uche whose entry into the fray was accompanied by a resounding welcome
by the over 30,000 Zaragoza fans at the match venue.

Glad to be back

“Getting to play a
match after all these months was really something,” the 26-year-old
said. “It was a fantastic moment for me. Some of the fans were giving
me words of encouragement when I was warming up on the sidelines and
when I came in the welcome was fantastic. They were truly behind me but
I wasn’t happy that we lost in the end. It would have been nice to give
them something to cheer about.”

Saturday’s 2-1 loss
didn’t do much to alleviate what has been a poor campaign for Zaragoza
as they remain in the relegation zone with only four games to the end
of the season. Zaragoza will need to be at their best for the remainder
of the season if they plan on remaining in the Primera division come
the end of the season.

And it sure doesn’t
appear likely to be an easy task with upcoming games against Deportivo,
Espanyol, Xerez and Villarreal, but Uche has high hopes regarding his
club’s chances of escaping the drop.

“It won’t be easy
but I believe we have a very good chance of surviving,” he continued.
“Some of the games won’t be easy but we will be doing all we can to
make the fans happy.”

Up next, the World Cup

Another set of fans
who will undoubtedly be happy with Uche’s return to football are the
fans of the Super Eagles who haven’t seen their darling striker in the
green and white of the national team since last September’s 2-2 draw
against Tunisia in Abuja.

With the World Cup
in South Africa just over a month away, Uche will need to get as much
playing time as he can muster between now and the end of the season to
impress Super Eagles coach Lars Lagerback. It’s a task that doesn’t
appear easy, but Uche’s belief is resolute.

“A lot of people thought I wouldn’t play again this season but I am
back playing again,” he said “My aim now is to keep working hard so
that I can make it to the World Cup.”

The hope of
Nigerian football fans for a decent performance at the world cup in
South Africa received a boost with Chinedu Obasi’s strike on goal for
his club and the return of another striker, Ikechukwu Uche of Spanish
team, Real Zaragozam.

Uche returned to action last weekend after a
seven-month injury spell . He came off the bench and played for 16
minutes in his club’s 2-1 loss to Real Madrid . It was a remarkable
return for one of the Super Eagles regulars who suffered a ligament
damage in September last year and undoubtedly, coach Lars Lagerback
will be delighted at the strikers recovery especially as he has named
him on provisional list last week.

On Sunday, Malaga’s
Obinna Nsofor scored his club lone goal in a 1-1 draw in 86th minute
after coming on as replacement for Ecuadorean Caicedo in the 72nd
minute.

England

John Utaka and Nwankwo Kanu ( Portsmouth):

John Utaka was on
for the entire 90minutes as his relegated side Portsmouth rallied back
to a 2-2 draw against Bolton Wanderers in their Premier League
encounter at the Reebok Stadium last weekend. It was Cote D’Ivoire
striker, Aruna Dindane who scored both goals for Pompey to cancel
Bolton’s 2-0 lead but Utaka had a decent performance and provided the
assist for the second goal after his cutback pass near the byline found
the Ivorian forward who slotted the ball home from six yards out. Utaka
is hoping to make the final squad for the World Cup after being named
in the 44-man list released by the Super Eagles coach last week but he
may have to step up on his game if he is hoping to be among the six or
seven players to fill the forward line in the Nigeria squad to South
Africa. He has made 16 league appearances – eight from the start- for
the South Coast outfit, yet he has failed to record a single goal with
two games left to play in the campaign.

Eagles captain,
Nwankwo Kanu was not even listed for the Bolton trip albeit he claims
he is in top shape to lead the Eagles to the World Cup in South Africa.
Kanu however has a better scorecard than Utaka, having made 23
appearances for Portsmouth though he only started seven of those games.
The former Arsenal man has scored twice and provided two assists.

Aiyegbeni Yakubu,
Joseph Yobo and Victor Anichebe (Everton): Yakubu was on from the start
for only the eighth time this season but it was actually Anichebe who
scored one of Everton’s goals to help them to a 2-1 win over Fulham at
Goodison Park on Sunday.

Anichebe who is one of Nigeria’s World Cup
hopefuls came off the bench to level scores at 1-1 for the Toffees
before Mikel Arteta netted the winner. Yobo continued to endure a
frustrating experience on the Everton bench for 90minutes again last
weekend.France Onyekachi Apam (OGC Nice): One of our most consistent
players in Europe, Apam was not listed last weekend when his side, Nice
ensured they are staying in the top flight next season with a 2-1
victory over Grenoble at Stade Municipal Du Ray. The team was flirting
with relegation after winning only 10 out of 33 games before the match
against Grenoble but last weekend’s triumph meant they will play in
Ligue1 next season.

Central defender, Apam, who can also play as a full
back has featured in 23 league games this season and featured for
90minutes in all of the games. His number of appearances has obviously
been limited by his participation at the African Cup of Nations in
Angola in January.Olubayo Adefemi (US Bolougne) and Brown Ideye
(Sochaux) :Adefemi is one of Nigeria’s promising players in the right
back position for the World Cup in South Africa but he has not enjoyed
the best of times in the second half of the Ligue1 season at the newly
promoted outfit, Bolougne.

The former Rapid Bucharest of Romania player
was again not listed last weekend as his club, recorded a convincing
3-0 win away to Sochaux, their biggest win this season. The win gave
the newcomers a huge boost in their fight to escape relegation but they
still have a lot to do to better their 19th position on the table.
Adefemi has not featured in Ligue1 since scoring Bolugne’s consolation
goal in their 3-1 loss at Lille Metropole in February this year but he
is among the players called up to fight for a place in Nigeria’s World
Cup squad. Sochaux striker, Ideye was on for 90 minutes but he could
not save his club from a comprehensive home defeat.

The former Flying
Eagles striker who played in the 2007 World Youth Championship squad
has played 13 games for Sochaux, scoring only once. His other three
goals for the team came in the French Cup. He is one of the players
listed for World Cup build up programme.

Germany

Chinedu Obasi (TSG Hoffenheim):

If there is one
player whose potential of making Nigeria’s World Cup squad is not in
doubt , it should be Obasi. But his injury problems have continued to
hinder his progress in Europe. Obasi once again showed his scoring
prowess when he netted twice on Sunday to help his club to a 5-1 win
over Hamburg. He netted his first on 31minutes after pouncing on a pass
from Vukcevic and netted his second with a calm finish running through
on goal in the 72nd minute of the encounter.

The two goals brought
Obasi’s season tally in the league to five from 18 starts and he was
sure to have been delighted to have completed the whole game without
injury.Obafemi Martins (VFL Wolsburg):Expectedly the duo of Edin Dzeko
and Grafite got the nod to start in the attack for Wolfsburg and Eagles
striker Martins was left out of the squad.

Nigeria’s
representative in the CAF Confederation Cup, Enyimba International,
have an arduous task ahead of them as the People’s Elephant came
crashing 0-3 to their opponent AS Vita of Congo in the first leg of
their Confederation Cup match.

All the goals were scored in the first half of the encounter.

The Aba landlords
would now have to score at least four un-replied goals in the return
leg billed for Aba in a fortnight, to stand any chance of moving on.

In the last round
of matches played, Enyimba had to upturn an earlier 2-0 deficit it
suffered in the hands of Academicas Petroleos to win their home game
3-0 to advance to this stage of the competition.

Nigerian clubs are
yet to win the competition since its first edition in 2004. The best
result by a Nigerian side was a second place finish by Dolphins in
2005. Enyimba coach, Okey Emordi, had earlier promised that he is
determined to make history as the first side to win that trophy for the
country.

A playing tour of
either Spain or France tops the agenda of Falconets coach, Adat Egan,
in his bid to make an appreciable impact at the Female U-20 World Cup
billed for Germany from July 13- August

Aware of the
pitfalls that hindered his predecessors at major championships in the
past; Egan says he would set out to begin preparations with his team in
earnest.

“We have already
sent our proposals to the NFF and we are expecting a favourable
response from them. Already we have pencilled either Spain or France
for a playing tour for the girls” he said.

According to Egan,
at least thirty players would first be invited to the World Cup camp
billed to open next week with a couple of friendly matches already
targeted.

In the draws
already conducted for the tournament last week in Germany, Nigeria drew
the trio of England, Japan Mexico as group opponents.

Chances from the group

Looking at the
teams in the group, Egan believes the Falconets have a fair chance of
making it out of the group even though he regarded the teams in the
group as all good sides.

“They are all good
teams with different pedigree in female football; England and Japan
have shown their stuffs in different tournament but I remain positive
that we would make it out of the group to the next stage” he said.

After crashing out
as the bottom placed team in the maiden edition of the competition in
Canada way back 2002, Nigeria has finished the last three editions
reaching the quarter finals.

History making

For Egan, his mind is set on advancing beyond the quarter finals as he remains confident of making history in Germany.

“As a coach you
have to set high targets for yourself and for your team, I believe when
you do this, it motivates you to do more. In Germany I have my mind on
playing in the finals” he said.

Similarly, the
coach of the last set of Falconets to the World Cup in Chile, Dan
Evumena feels the team has a good chance of doing well as he pointed
out that the core of the present team were with him to the last World
Cup played in 2008.

“I went with a
relatively young team to Chile and I feel the experience most of them
had in Chile would have a good bearing on the team now,” he said.

Falconets will start their campaign at the 2010 FIFA U-20 Women
World Cup on July 14 in Augsburg with an exciting fixture against
England

Bayern Munich took
a step towards reaching the final of the UEFA Champions League after
managing a 1-0 win in the first leg of their semi final against
Olympique Lyon on Wednesday night at the Allianz Arena. Arjen Robben
blasted home another spectacular strike to give the German side the
edge in a match that saw the two sides ending the tie with 10 men each.

Bayern’s Franck Ribery was given a straight red card in the first half
after he stamped on Lisandro Lopez while Lyon’s Toulalan followed in
the second half after he was booked twice. It was not the kind of
performance expected of the Bundesliga side as they spurned several
scoring opportunities against the French side, but they will be happy
to go into the second leg with an advantage.