Nigeria Content Online

After
Arsenal scored in the 98th minute through Robin van Persie, it seemed
that it was game on for the English Premier League (EPL) title but
unfortunately for the Gunners, they contrived to concede a penalty of
their own when Emmanuel Eboue pushed Lucas in the 99th minute. Dirk
Kuyt stepped up to take the penalty and slotted the ball to the right
of Wojciech Szczesny.

So with the last kick of the game, the Gunners handed Manchester United the advantage.

Arsenal in their
last five matches have drawn four and won one, against Blackpool. Of
the four draws, three have been at the Emirates. The Gunners now have
to be looking anxiously over their shoulders as Chelsea now sit just
two points away in third position.

So at the Emirates
with Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson, watching on, it was the
case of two late penalties but a favourable outcome for the 18-time
champions and it could be a 19th title in some weeks time, surpassing
Liverpool as the most successful league club in England.

So with six matches
to the end of the season, it seems the Red Devils will be coasting home
to a 19th title though it is still mathematically possible for Arsenal
to overhaul United. Though the run-in favours United, Alex Ferguson’s
men still have to face Chelsea and Arsenal in consecutive matches. And
there is the distraction of the semi-final matches against Schalke 04
but United will have to lose twice and the Gunners must then ensure
that they win their remaining fixtures starting with the away trip to
London rivals, Tottenham Hotspurs on Wednesday. Arsene Wenger had stern
words with referee, Andre Mariner at the end of the match but he must
concede that his team and not the centre referee cost his team the win
they highly craved.

Stoke destroy Bolton’s FA Cup dreams

Stoke City booked
their place in the FA Cup final match against Manchester City with a
five-goal demolition of Bolton on Sunday at Wembley.

Stoke City got off
to the best of starts with three goals in the first 30 minutes through
Matthew Etherington, Robert Huth and Kenwyne Jones.

Bolton’s manager,
Owen Coyle, must have wondered whether his team had wandered aimlessly
into Wembley on Sunday, and the second half display did not in any way
improve the manager’s countenance.

Jonathan Walters
then stepped up from the City bench and added the gloss to the drubbing
with goals in the 68th minute and 78th minute to complete the most
unlikely of results.

Stoke also achieved the biggest margin of victory in an FA Cup
semifinal since 1908. The final match of the oldest cup competition in
the world will be played at Wembley on May 14, 2011.

A completely out-of-sorts Roger Federer lost 6-4 6-4 to Austria’s Juergen Melzer in blustery conditions at the Monte Carlo Masters quarter-finals on Friday.

The Swiss, who has never won on the Monaco clay, had looked imperious in his previous two matches but never got going against the seventh seed on the breezy shores of the Mediterranean.

Melzer broke for 3-2 in the first set when second seed Federer netted the first of a number of easy forehands and the Austrian then immediately saved a break point on his own serve before taking the set and similarly sealing the second.

Federer, who last won a tournament in Doha in early January, had looked on course for a possible final with world number one and defending champion Rafa Nadal but his build-up to next month’s French Open has now suffered a surprise blow.

REUTERS

Nigeria’s
U-20 team, the Flying Eagles, will today depart for South Africa ahead
of the Africa Youth Championship (AYC) which kicks off this Sunday
through May 1.

The Flying Eagles
are booked into the Southern Sun Grayston in Johannesburg, and will
play their Group B matches at the Rand Stadium.

Nigeria alongside
seven other African countries, will battle for a ticket to the Youth
World Cup billed for Colombia later this year and winning the top prize
from the tournament.

Coach John Obuh
last week, named a 21-man list for the championship and remains
confident that his lads are good enough to conquer Africa and get an
unprecedented 6th African title.

The Flying Eagles
take on reigning world champions and bitter rivals, Black Satellites of
Ghana, in the opening match of Group B at the Rand Stadium on Monday
and also have dates with perennial rivals Cameroon and Gambia.

According to Obuh,
who was at the helm of affairs when the Golden Eaglets won silver at
the last edition of the Cadet World Cup hosted in Nigeria, his players
are now more matured and set to improve on their previous performances.

“The U-17
competition was held two years ago, so the players are two years more
mature and better now, and so we hope to go one better this time
around”, he said.

He added: “I will not single out any side because all the teams that have qualified for the AYC do deserve to be there”.

Obuh also defended
his decision to include VVV Venlo striker, Ahmed Musa in his final
squad; a move that has been faulted by some fans.

“I also don’t see his inclusion in the U-20s as a retrogressive step
because he has been very much a part of the team” he explained. He
added: “If he could do well with the Super Eagles, I don’t see why he
cannot do same with the Flying Eagles”.

Coach
of Nigeria’s under 23 men’s football team, Augustine Eguavoen has
expressed delight with the outcome of Wednesday’s draws for the 2012
Olympic Games which saw Nigeria’s Dream Team V pitched against their
counterparts from Tanzania.

The draws which
were released by Africa’s football governing body, CAF, will see the
Nigerian team travelling to Dar es Salaam on Wednesday, May 4 for the
first-leg tie before returning home for the reverse fixture billed for
May 18.

The Tanzanians,
during the last round of the qualifiers for the London 2012 Olympics,
eliminated 2000 Olympic gold medallists Cameroun. After losing 2-1 to
the Camerounians in the first-leg tie in Yaounde, the Tanzanians
responded with a similar score line in Dar es Salaam before advancing
via a 4-3 penalty-shoot-out win.

But Eguavoen is
confident his team will not be added to the list of teams eliminated at
the hands of the East Africans, even as he admits that the draws could
had been tougher, as Nigeria could have easily been pitched against the
likes of Egypt, Senegal, or even Sudan who were responsible for the
elimination of Ghana.

“It is not bad. It
could had been worse, so I am happy with the draw as it gives us a good
chance to progress,” said Eguavoen. “That doesn’t mean it will be a
stroll in the park for us as they have got to be respected.

He added: “Any team
capable of holding its own against the Camerounians has got to be
respected. But I am confident. I believe in this team and I’m sure we
will make it to the next round.”

Mini-tournament

The next round will
see the eight teams left in the competition being drawn into two groups
in a mini-tournament to be played in December at a yet-to-be-determined
venue, at the end of which the top three-placed teams will qualify for
the Olympics.

The fourth best placed team will however qualify for a play-off with an opponent from the Asian continent.

Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Dream Team V will tomorrow leave for Monrovia,
venue of this weekend’s All Africa Games qualifier against Liberia.
Twenty players made the team for the trip and they include senior
internationals Ekigho Ehiosun and Chibuzor Okonkwo who came in as a
replacement for right-back Emmanuel Anyanwu, who is in the Flying
Eagles team to the Africa Youth Championship in South Africa.

A total of N1.4m is
up for grabs as eight teams jostle for glory at this year’s edition of
the Promasidor Para-Soccer Championship whose draws were held yesterday
at the Freedom Park on Lagos Island.

In an interactive
session with the press, Theo Lawson, head of Total Consult, the
organizers of the tournament, stated that each athlete at the event
would get N10,000 for participating.

In addition,
players in the team which finishes the tournament in third place, would
be going home with an additionalN15,000 each, while the players from
the second and first placed teams would each get a cash prize of
N20,000 and N25,000 respectively.

For his part, the
Managing Director of Promasidor Nigeria, Keith Richard, reiterated the
organization’s commitment towards the championship.

“It is part of our
corporate social responsibility and we are not planning to stop this
sponsorship because we hope to give the people who birthed this vision
the wherewithal to execute it,” Richard said.

“When there is that stability, they can move on to think about other things without having to worry about finance.”

One chance

John Sunmonu, one
of the athletes who play for Total Consult Terrors, expressed gratitude
for the opportunity to be able to show his skills.

“This tournament
has given my life a meaning,” said Sunmonu. “We were picked up when
people felt nothing good can come out of us but the organizers and
sponsors saw something nobody saw and they gave us the chance, for that
I am grateful.”

The eight teams
have been drawn into two groups. Group A has last year’s champions,
Lead United along with New Afrikan Shrine Warriors, Kwara Para-Soccer
Club, and Avengers of Lagos.

In group B are
Total Consult Terrors, who finished second in last year’s tournament,
Kaduna Para-Soccer Club, Niger Para-Soccer Club and Baba Mai Mangoro
from Adamawa.

The games will be
played at the indoor sport hall of the University of Lagos from April
22 to 24. The group games will commence at 9am on April 22, while
semi-final matches will come up the following day.

The final comes up on April 24 and gets underway at 12pm.

Dutch club, VVV
Venlo has agreed to make Ahmed Musa available for the African Youth
Championship (AYC), but the highly-rated Nigerian forward will only get
to the team’s camp in South Africa on Sunday, a day before the Flying
Eagles’ opening match against Ghana. This is because Musa will play in
Venlo’s league game away to Roda on Saturday.

The Dutch team had earlier refused to release the 19-year-old for the tournament which gets underway on Sunday in South Africa.

This was mainly as
a result of VVV Venlo’s poor position on the Dutch Eredivisie table,
where they are presently enmeshed in a relegation battle.

But Musa was able
to secure his entry visa into South Africa on Thursday in Amsterdam and
will fly out to Johannesburg on Sunday, in time for Nigeria’s opening
match of the AYC against the tournament’s defending champions on Monday.

He will however get
to play only against Ghana and Cameroon before returning to the
Netherlands. He will, nevertheless rejoin the Flying Eagles to
prosecute the remainder of the tournament, that is, if the Nigerian
team makes it to the semi-finals after their game against Gambia on
April 24.

The Nigerian team
left for Johannesburg on Thursday evening for the tournament which runs
from April 17 to May 1. They will arrive South Africa on Friday morning
and will have two days to acclimatize before Monday’s game against
Ghana.

Change in venue

The game against
the Ghanaians will however now take place at the Dobsonville Stadium in
Soweto instead of the Rand Stadium which had earlier been billed to
host the game.

Plans by the
tournament’s organizers to use the Rand Stadium were scrapped owing to
the increasing cost of hosting a tournament that was only awarded to
South Africa following the escalation of violence in Libya in February.

The Dobsonville
Stadium will also host most of the tournament’s matches, except two –
the Mali versus Lesotho game on April 23, and the Nigeria against
Gambia tie on April 24 – which will be played at the Milpark Stadium.

All matches will have free entry but will be ticketed for safety
reasons, while the four semi-finalists will qualify for the Under-20
World Cup in Colombia in October.

Manchester City
would ease some of the hurt inflicted on them over the last four
decades by Manchester United if they win their FA Cup semi-final at
Wembley Stadium on Saturday and end United’s treble hopes.

Whoever does come
through will start as favourites to win the FA Cup itself on May 14
when they will face the winners of Sunday’s other semi-final between
Bolton Wanderers and Stoke City.

For different
reasons both matches have excited the imagination of fans beyond just
the teams involved; Saturday’s because of the intense rivalry and
significance of the tie to both Manchester clubs, and Sunday’s because
Bolton and Stoke rarely come so close to glory.

United have won
their last seven matches in all competitions and are on a high after
beating Chelsea 2-1 on Tuesday for a 3-1 aggregate success to secure a
place in the semi-finals of the Champions League.

United are also
seven points clear of Arsenal at the top of the Premier League and
there is a possibility they could repeat their Champions League,
Premier League and FA Cup treble of 1999 as they have hit form at just
the right time.

Although they will be without the suspended Wayne Rooney, Ryan Giggs, 37, has been outstanding in their recent run of victories.

“Our confidence is
really high and players are coming back from injury and that’s what you
want at this stage of the season as there are games every three days,”
said Giggs.

“The manager will
chop and change the team… but we’ve got 20 players probably competing
for 11 places.” Unfortunately for United, Rooney, who has returned to
form with 10 goals since Feb 1, is unavailable following his swearing
incident at West Ham United two weeks ago.

City may also have
to make do without the services of former United striker Carlos Tevez,
who picked up a hamstring injury on Monday.

His absence could
dent their chances of reaching the final for the first time since 1981.
Thirty years ago they lost 3-2 to Tottenham Hotspur in a replay while
their last FA Cup success was in 1969 when they beat Leicester City.

Although owner
Sheikh Mansour has invested hundreds of millions into the club, City
have yet to end their 35-year wait for a major trophy and will have to
show a dramatic improvement on their abject display in Monday’s 3-0
loss at Liverpool to prevent United rubbing their noses in the dirt
again.

Even longer

While City’s wait
for major honours has lasted since 1976 when they won the League Cup,
Bolton and Stoke have gone even longer without collecting a major piece
of silverware.

Stoke, who have
been playing in the FA Cup since 1883, have never reached the final.
They last reached the semis in 1972 when they lost to Arsenal. That was
also the year they won their only major trophy beating Chelsea in the
League Cup final. Bolton have won the FA Cup four times, the last of
those triumphs coming in 1958 when Nat Lofthouse, their greatest ever
player who died earlier this year, scored both goals when they beat
Manchester United 2-0 at Wembley.

Both sides, sitting
comfortably in mid-table, have beaten each other in the Premier League
this season, and Bolton manager Owen Coyle says the idea of winning the
Cup as a tribute to Lofthouse, has taken hold in the town.

“It would be nice
if that comes to fruition but I think there’s a lot of tough obstacles
in the way for that to happen,” he told Reuters.

“We’re more than up for the challenge and we will do everything we can to reach the final against a very good Stoke side.”

Stoke manager Tony Pulis told reporters: “It’s a great achievement
that we have got this far but we are not getting carried away with the
idea we have had any sort of success. We have done well in the League
and reaching the Cup final would show we are definitely moving in the
right direction.”

The Miami Heat
completed their regular season with a confident 97-79 win over the
Toronto Raptors on Wednesday, the star-studded lineup now able to shift
their focus to a tilt at the NBA championship.

Having already
locked up the second seed in the East and a first-round matchup with
the Philadelphia 76ers, the Heat rested All-Star trio, LeBron James,
Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh for the regular season finale and still ran
out comfortable winners.

After enduring a
campaign of unrelenting scrutiny, the Heat now face a completely new
set of questions. The spotlight becoming brighter and the attention
more intense.

The Heat have had
82 games to learn to play together and their first round series against
the energetic 76ers should reveal if those lessons have sunk in.

“I think we have
squeezed everything you possibly could out of the regular season and I
think it has prepared us for the post-season,” Heat coach Erik
Spoelstra told reporters. “What I’ve been talking about the last few
weeks are habits.

“If you haven’t
developed habits over the five months of the regular season and been
building up resiliency and the resolve to get you through tough times;
you’re not going to try to do it in a day and a half.”

From the day in
July when ‘King James’ jilted the Cleveland Cavaliers, announcing he
was taking his talents to South Beach to form an NBA super team with
Bosh and Wade, Miami has been planning a championship parade.

A regular season
record of 58-24 was the first step toward their objective but now the
climb becomes steeper with four testing best-of-seven series needing to
be navigated to the summit.

“Our objective is
winning, you can see it by our actions and the Big Three’s actions,”
Heat center Jamaal Magloire told reporters.

“We’re ready, we’re
looking forward to playing Philadelphia, we’ve played hard the whole
season… we’ve given ourselves an opportunity to go all the way.”

Hot and cold

The Heat finished
with the NBA’s third best record but at various points of a shockingly
inconsistent season looked more like a disaster in the making than a
dynasty.

After a modest 8-7
start to the campaign, the Heat appeared to be developing into the
juggernaut many had feared, winning 21-of-22 contests from late
November to early January.

In March, the Heat
cooled again losing five straight, including four at home, their
frustrations bringing James and company to tears in the locker room.

But when Miami’s Big Three are clicking, they are a frightening force.

That power was on
full display in March, when James, Wade and Bosh each recorded 30
points, 10 rebounds in a 125-119 win over the Houston Rockets.

It marked the first time in 50 years that three players on the same team had a least 30 points and 10 rebounds.

While James, twice
the NBA’s most valuable player, has received little MVP buzz this
season, he still finished second in league scoring while Wade was
fourth and Bosh produced some of his best work down the home stretch.

But blending three of the NBA’s top talents together with a roster cobbled from other team’s cast-offs has proven tricky.

Such chemistry has at times been elusive but Spoelstra was confident his team has discovered a winning formula.

“197 days ago we started this journey and it feels like yesterday,” Spoelstra said.

“We’ve been through a lot already in five months and we feel what we
experienced through the regular season, what habits we developed, will
prepare us for what we will be facing when the second season starts.”

Rafa Nadal and
Roger Federer continued on a collision course towards the Monte Carlo
Masters final after easily winning their third round matches in
contrasting conditions on Thursday.

Nadal braved
unusually chilly temperatures on the sun-kissed Cote d’Azur to seal a
place in quarter-finals with a straightforward 6-2, 6-4 victory over
Richard Gasquet.

While the crowd
huddled for warmth deciding whether to cheer six-times champion Nadal
or local favourite Gasquet, the Spaniard had already broken the
Frenchman in the first game as his sheer power again overawed an
opponent.

The top seed,
bidding to be the first man to win the same tournament seven times in a
row as he warms up for next month’s French Open, almost lost the next
game but held serve thanks to a stunning backhand down the line and
hardly looked back.

Gasquet did break
for 4-4 in the second set to reveal some chinks in Nadal’s armour,
offering pretenders to his crown a glimmer of hope that the Spaniard is
beatable on clay.

Second seed Federer
staked his claim with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Croatia’s Marin Cilic
after the sun had broken through the clouds at the Monte Carlo Country
Club.

Superb winners

The Swiss barely got out of first gear but unleashed some superb winners and the result was never in doubt.

Fourth seed David
Ferrer earlier navigated his way through the third round with a 6-1,
6-3 win over Canada’s fast-rising Milos Raonic but Tomas Berdych hit
the rocks when he was overwhelmed by Croatia’s Ivan Ljubicic, who next
faces Nadal on Friday.

Raonic, who has
rocketed from 156th in the rankings at the year’s start to 34th, had no
answer to the Spaniard’s guile as Ferrer romped to victory.

Czech fifth seed
Berdych, was cast aside by rampant Ljubicic 6-4, 6-2 while Viktor
Troicki also went through after Spain’s Tommy Robredo retired hurt
while leading 6-3, 1-2 with an apparent hamstring injury.

World number four Andy Murray, next faces France’s Gilles Simon
hoping to build on his opening victory over Radek Stepanek – his first
win in two and a half months.

Despite admitting
little or no prior knowledge of Nigeria’s opponent, Liberia, in the All
Africa Games qualifying match coming up tomorrow at the Samuel Kanyon
Doe Sports Complex in Monrovia, national U-23 coach, Austin Eguavoen
says he will be gunning for victory in this first test at making it to
the Maputo Games coming up in September.

“I don’t have much information on them but we will be going all out for victory” he said.

“We never had much
information on Equatorial Guinea either but we ended up beating them
9-1. We have done our part to prepare well for the match and we will
build on the little information we have”.

Though victory is
on their minds, Nigeria’s delegation to Monrovia know it won’t come
easy, as they were already given a dose of what to expect on arrival at
the Roberts International Airport in Liberia on Thursday.

The team was
delayed for over three hours with the host football association
claiming ignorance of the arrival of the Nigerian team.

“It was a big
issue”, said Nigeria Football Federation’s technical committee
chairman, Chris Green, who led the team to Monrovia. “Our team was at
the airport for three hours before we saw some officials of the Liberia
FA. It was not good enough,” Green added.

Not distracted

Unperturbed by the
pranks being played by the Liberians, Eguavoen said: “We know their
plan but I can assure you that the treatment would in no way affect our
game on Saturday. We are prepared for the match and would not be
distracted by this kind of thing”.

Nigeria failed to
make it to the last All African Games football event in Algiers but are
hoping to make a return to Africa’s version of the Olympic Games this
year.

Only 20 players made the trip with Eguavoen to Monrovia, one of whom
is former U-17 and U-20 star midfielder, Rabiu Ibrahim, who assured
fans of victory over Liberia. “I know it won’t be an easy game over
there (in Monrovia) but I want to assure our fans that we have a strong
team and very good coaches that will win the game (against Liberia)”,
he said. The match will be played on Saturday by 7pm (Nigerian time).