Nigeria Content Online

In-form Novak
Djokovic is not even competing at this week’s Monte Carlo Masters yet
Rafael Nadal can still sense the Serb lurking in the shadows as the
clay court season begins in stifling sunshine.

For a man who won
every clay tournament he entered last year and who at Monte Carlo is
bidding to be the first player in the open era to win the same event
seven times in a row, the Spanish world number one was remarkably
subdued on Monday.

Two straight final
defeats to Djokovic on the hard courts at Indian Wells and Miami have
left their mark despite the switch to clay and the Serb’s absence from
Monte Carlo to rest a knee injury.

“I feel very
beatable when I go on court. The last six years on clay, I could never
have imagined what I did. It’s almost impossible to repeat a season
like last year,” Nadal told reporters at the Country Club, perched
above the shimmering sea.

“It’s almost a year
since I’ve played on clay. As usual, I try to watch videos (of myself)
to remember what I have to do. Last year I started to play and felt
fantastic from the beginning. Every year is different. You need
matches.” World number two Djokovic, whose injury is expected to clear
up in the next few days, has won 24 straight matches in 2011 and
nine-times Grand Slam champion Nadal reckons that form can be
transferred onto clay despite the Serb skipping this week.

“I’m sure on clay he’s going to be good,” Nadal said, muscles bulging out of his shirt sleeves.

Advantages

“This year Novak
has a lot of advantages. He is in a perfect situation to be number one.
I’m sure he’ll be number one next month. He started the season playing
unbelievably. In my opinion he didn’t even play his top level in Indian
Wells and Miami.” Nadal, who fought to keep the glamorous but small
scale Monte Carlo tournament a Masters event, has such an attachment to
Monaco that he had a special audience with Prince Albert on Sunday.

“I played my best
tennis ever on clay I think here last year,” added Nadal, due to play
his first match on Wednesday. “This place is one of my favourites in
the world.”

World number three
Roger Federer was keen to point out he is no mug on clay as the build
up to next’s month’s French Open begins. “I feel very strong on the
surface. It’s the surface I grew up on. Everybody knows that by now. I
can make a huge step forward,” the Swiss said.

If Federer’s recent
form is patchy, Andy Murray’s has been downright dreadful since his
Australian Open final defeat to Djokovic and the Briton is no nearer to
finding a new coach.

“I’m not any closer. I’m trying to concentrate on playing,” the world number four said.

“I feel better this year, I just haven’t been playing well in the matches. I’m sure this week there will be a few upsets.”

Interim Bayern
Munich coach Andries Jonker could not have wished for a more
challenging start as the German champions battle to rescue a barren
season with a Champions League spot for next season.

The 48-year-old
Jonker, Louis van Gaal’s assistant and his successor after he was
sacked on Sunday following a draw at Nuremberg which relegated them to
fourth in the league, must launch a five-game winning burst starting
against second-placed Bayer Leverkusen on the weekend.

In a twist of fate,
Leverkusen, who could scupper Bayern’s hopes of clinching a third place
finish that would put them into Champions League qualification, are
coached by Jupp Heynckes, already appointed as new Bayern coach for
next season.

With next year’s
Champions League final to be staged in Munich at their own Allianz
Arena, it would be a catastrophe for Bayern if they missed out on
Europe’s top club competition.

“I expect an
explosion against Leverkusen. I expect that the players will finally
get rid of that straitjacket they have been wearing in the past
months,” said club president Uli Hoeness after announcing Jonker as van
Gaal’s immediate successor.

Perfect replacement

Jonker is seen as
the perfect fire-fighting choice with Bayern bosses saying he knew how
the club operated and enjoyed the players’ trust, something his
predecessor had long lost.

“That’s just fairy
tales that the players were behind (Van Gaal). You could see that a
couple of our players’ game was dictated by pure fear,” said Hoeness.

The softly spoken
Dutchman, who was also flamboyant Van Gaal’s assistant at Barcelona,
will most likely reappoint keeper Joerg Butt as his number one after
van Gaal had surprisingly opted to give the start to youngster Thomas
Kraft midway through the season despite the club board’s vocal
objections.

The 36-year-old’s
experience is seen as crucial in the final phase of the league, with
Bayern on 52 points, one behind Hanover 96 and nine off Leverkusen.
Borussia Dortmund lead on 66.

“We wanted a man
who knows the conditions here, who knows what needs to be changed,”
said club CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, explaining the club’s choice to
appoint Jonker.

“He said that he will keep all the good things but also change what
needs to be changed. I think Andries Jonker has a very clear plan.”

It
is indeed refreshing to see peace returning to the rugby family in
Nigeria. Two years of conflict between two key members of the family
-Friends of Rugby and Racing Club came to an end on Thursday.

The disquiet in the
fraternity had commenced in 2009 after the National Sports Commission
(NSC), which felt that some sports in the country would fare better if
they were allowed to be run by private individuals, had gone ahead to
concession them; one of the affected being rugby.

Friends of Rugby, a
body comprising individuals interested in promoting the game and which
lost out in the bid, accused the then Secretary General of the
federation of masterminding its defeat. At any rate, Racing Rugby Club
went ahead to form the leadership of the new board.

Also interested in
moving the game forward, members of the new board of the NRFF,
comprised largely of young and intelligent men, threw their energies
into the effort. But it clearly wasn’t going to work out because as a
rule the international Rugby Board (IRB), which supervises rugby
globally, does not recognise concessioning but elections as a means of
changing the leadership of a national federation. It promptly clamped a
ban on Nigeria from participating in all competitions organised by it
in addition to withholding grants to the country.

That was the state
of affairs until the National Olympic Committee (NOC), through Tunde
Popoola, its Secretary General, waded in January. The warring parties
agreed in principle to come together to form a new board through the
holding of elections, which would begin at the zones. That process has
run its course leading to the meeting last Thursday, where results of
the elections from the different zones were collated and a formula for
sharing of positions in the federation agreed upon.

This is clearly
sweet music to the ears of those of us who have craved a settlement of
the crisis. The cost of conflict has been high. Our inability to take
part in high profile rugby competitions because of the subsisting ban,
robbed us of the opportunity raise our profile in the game. The fact
that the ban happened at a time the awareness of the sports was
growing, with more and more young men embracing the sport either as
players or spectators, made it even more unfortunate.

Getting back on track

Thankfully, we have
put that behind us. Now is the time to make up for lost time. We must
commend officials of the old board, led by Kayode Oguntayo, for the
maturity they showed in agreeing to hold elections. It shows them to be
really committed to the growth and development of the game. The impact
they had on the sport in the brief period they held the fort has been
visible to all, particularly their push to capture children in
secondary schools through the Cowbell iTRY programme. If sustained, the
programme has the potential of bringing about growth in rugby even
beyond the grassroots, which they are focusing heavily on at the moment.

Kudos must also go
to the Kelechi Mbagwu-led Friends of rugby. They did not allow their
loss to Racing Rugby at the bidding to derail their Lagos Union Rugby
League, which has helped in keeping our players busy.

That said, the
point cannot be overemphasised that the two parties must resist the
temptation to lapse back into a war of attrition. They must keep faith
with the agreements, which ushered in this new dispensation. There are
bound to be minor disagreements at this time; it is perfectly normal
for that to happen after all they have been engaged in conflict for two
years. The thing to do is show enough maturity to understand that no
one can have his way all the time. The overriding consideration at this
time should be how to re-integrate Nigerian rugby back into the
mainstream of global rugby from which it has been ostracized for the
last two years.

Aside our players getting a feel of international action, grants
from the IRB, no matter how little they are, will certainly go a long
way in easing the financial burdens of the NRFF.

The Chelsea match
against Manchester United turned out to be anti-climactic and was
settled by a Wayne Rooney goal in the 23rd minute. A cross-field pass
from Michael Carrick to Ryan Giggs was brought down superbly past a
floundering Jose Bosingwa and his cut back found Rooney who passed the
ball into the net via the post. This was Rooney’s fifth consecutive
goal in the Champions League quarter finals. in five years. The England
striker had also scored against Chelsea in the league in match, though
United went on to lose 2-1.

The match started
at a frenetic pace as Chelsea sought to take the game to Manchester
United and Fernando Torres almost got on a Bosingwa near-post cross but
it was brilliantly intercepted from a returning Rio Ferdinand.

Michael Essien in
Chelsea’s two-man midfield found it tough against the United trio of
Ryan Giggs, Michael Carrick and Park Ji-Sung and the Ghanaian gave away
many loose passes. Chelsea almost got the equaliser in the 45th minute
but for a clearance from Patrice Evra on the line. Didier Drogba
crossed to Torres and his effort hit the post while Frank Lampard’s
rebound was cleared off the goal line by Evra.

The second half was
a cagey affair with Chelsea seeking the equaliser but whatever they
did, they just could not get past Edwin Van Der Saar in goal for
United. The outstanding save of the match was in the 75th minute and
Torres will have thought he had scored but a great save from the 40
year old rolled back the years.

The match almost
turned ugly in the last minutes as the centre referee, Alberto Undiano
Mallenco from Spain failed to spot an Evra foul on Ramires in the box
in added time and then gave Torres a yellow card for simulation.

So the first goal turned out to be the winner in this tie and who will bet against United in the second leg next week Tuesday.

Barcelona odds on to meet Real now

Barcelona kept up
their side of the bargain in the expected semifinal clash with fierce
rivals. Real Madrid by thumping quarterfinal debutants,

Shakhtar Donetsk
5-1, though it was surprising that Lionel Messi did not get on the
score sheet. Andres Iniesta started the rout in the second minute of
the first half with a lovely chip and created the second goal for Dani
Alves in the 34th minute.

The game was over in the 53rd minute when Gerard Pique scored for
the second consecutive game. Though Shakhtar pulled a goal back, Seydou
Keita and Xavi added further goals to make the second leg trip to
Ukraine a comfortable one for the Catalans.

The Nigerian U-23
team will be leaving Nigeria tomorrow for Malabo for the second leg of
the London 2012 Olympic Games qualifying match against Equatorial
Guinea.

The team comprising
six foreign-based players and 14 local players would see action for
Nigeria in Malabo this weekend, as they hope to repeat the form that
saw them wallop the Guineans 5-0 in Benin City recently.

Leading the pack
would be PSV Eindhoven’s midfielder Rabiu Ibrahim. Also in the line-up
are goalkeeper Dele Ajiboye, Ibok Edet, Michael Essang, Arinze Ikenna
and Uchechi Daniel. From the local scene, Ofem Inah, Emmanuel Anyanwu,
Otekpa Emergi, Femi Thomas, Udoh Kingsley and Salami Gbolahan are in
the squad. Others include Mba Chimeze, Ayo Saka, Theophilus Afelukan,
Usman Amoda, Madubuchi Josiah, Reuben Gabriel, Osas Okoro and Ekigho
Ehiosun.

Absent from the team are captain Lukman Haruna and Uchebo Okechukwu.

Chief coach, Austin Eguavoen explains why:

“Uchebo would have
been here for the Malabo game but he could not get a connecting flight,
so we have decided to leave him out for the game against Equatorial
Guinea but he will be available for the game in Monrovia”.

“For the team
captain, Haruna Lukman, he was eager to come for the game but his club
needed him for this weekend’s game against Lille in the French League”.
Eguavoen added.

Eguavoen has
expressed his confidence in the crop of players that has been
assembled, maintaining that they have what it takes to bring about the
desired result.

“We are going with
a 5-0 win from the first leg and I believe we will get nothing less
than victory in Malabo but the worst case scenario will be a draw,”
concludes Eguavoen.

The U-23 team, nicknamed Dream Team V would fly out to the
Equatorial Guinean capital on Friday ahead of the Sunday’s return leg
match. They will be travelling through Cotonou, Benin Republic to
arrive Malabo in the early evening.

Tottenham Hotspur’s
debut Champions League season has been a story of unlikely comebacks
but even the staunchest believer will hold little hope they can recover
from Tuesday’s 4-0 thrashing by Real Madrid.

Way back in August,
Spurs dipped their toe into the Champions League so tentatively, that
within 30 minutes of their qualifying round first-leg match at Young
Boys of Berne, they were 3-0 down.

However, setting
their tone for the competition, they pulled two goals back and then won
the second leg with a convincing 4-0 scoreline.

In the group stage,
things were even more dramatic as they trailed Inter Milan 4-0 at the
San Siro, only for Gareth Bale’s spectacular hat-trick to make it 4-3
and give them the confidence to beat the holders 3-1 back in London.

At the Bernabeu on
Tuesday, the 15th-minute dismissal of Peter Crouch for two wild sliding
tackles made Tottenham’s task near impossible.

And even if they
were to play with 12 men at White Hart Lane next week, another
turnaround looks beyond the realms of possibility.

“You need a miracle
playing here with 10; better teams than us would have struggled,” said
Spurs manager Harry Redknapp after the club’s heaviest European defeat.

“We’ve got a mountain to climb but we’ll give it a go.

“It’s been a great
experience and we still have a game to play at White Hart Lane. It
won’t be tough to lift them -what’s tough is the injuries.”

Spurs have 13
players unavailable, not including Aaron Lennon, whose last-minute
withdrawal through illness on Tuesday did much to disrupt Redknapp’s
carefully designed game plan.

“I’ve got to try to find 11 for Saturday against Stoke City,” Redknapp said.

Spurs’ season,
though likely to live long in the folk memory in the pubs along the
Seven Sisters Road, is in danger of sliding towards an anti-climactic
end.

Learning curve

The Champions
League adventure looks over and, thanks to their poor Premier League
form of recent, the next one will not be coming around for at least
another year.

Since their famous
1-0 win over AC Milan in the San Siro on February 15, Spurs have lost
to Blackpool and drawn with Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Ham United
and Wigan Athletic -hardly the stuff of potential European champions.

They now trail
fourth-placed Chelsea by five points with eight games remaining and
need to pick up their domestic form to hold on to fifth and a place in
the Europa League next season.

Bale, however,
showing the same self-belief and enthusiasm as in his scintillating
wing play this season, has not given up on either front yet.

“We are not going to sit back and take another beating from them in the second leg,” he said after Tuesday’s mauling.

“Hopefully we will win and hopefully that win will be enough.

“We have to pick
ourselves up for the rest of the season. We can still finish fourth or
higher maybe. We have to keep going. We still have the second leg and
the league.

“We are a young team that is learning and I think we can definitely learn from this.”

Mohammed Bin Hammam received a boost to his campaign to become
FIFA president when he was backed by his former foe and ex-FIFA executive
committee member Chung Mong-joon Tuesday.

The 61-year-old faces a tough ask in ousting incumbent Sepp
Blatter, as head of soccer’s world governing body in the June election, with
the Swiss having held the position for 13 years.

Bin Hammam sat alongside as Dr Chung, who famously questioned
the Qatari’s mental health two years ago at the Asian Football Confederation
congress, said he was the right man for the job.

“We welcome the candidacy of Asian Football Confederation
president Mohammed Bin Hammam,” Chung told reporters at a media conference in
Seoul.

“Blatter has served as FIFA secretary general and president for
30 years. Now it’s time for him to give way to a new person.” Chung, who
surprisingly lost his FIFA vice-president seat to Prince Ali of Jordan at the
AFC Congress in January, remains an influential figure in world soccer having
been part of the FIFA executive committee since 1994 and his family owning the
giant Hyundai conglomerate.

The Korean, honorary chairman of the Korean Football Association
(KFA), was once considered a possible challenger to Blatter at the June 1 FIFA
congress in Zurich and his presence in Bin Hammam’s campaign could help sway
votes.

Bin Hammam, who is touring the world canvassing support,
launched his bid to become the first Asian president of FIFA two weeks ago in
Kuala Lumpur, when he revealed a manifesto based on making the organisation
more open to the public.

Chung questioned Blatter’s popularity.

“In terms of finances, FIFA is more successful than the
(International Olympic Committee) IOC and the president should be admired,
beloved and respected but Blatter is not.

“I can’t say Bin Hammam is perfect but he is the right candidate to bring
change and revolution to FIFA.”

In the last 10 meetings between Chelsea and Manchester United,
only once has the team that scored first, gone on to lose the game and that
happened very recently on March 1, 2011.

So if this skirmish results to time-tested variables between
these two club sides, then expect a very cagey affair and a score-line that
will likely read 2-1, 1-0 or 0-0 at the end of the first 90 minutes at Stamford
Bridge.

At the time that United beat Chelsea in that 2008 Moscow final,
the Red Devils were coasting home with the league title and were nine points
ahead of Chelsea, who had a game in hand. This season, United are 11 points
from Chelsea with a game in hand so do the omens favour a United win?

Also while Alex Ferguson’s men could still win the treble,
Chelsea can only realistically aim for the Champions League. Chelsea though,
boasts of a fine record against United, they are undefeated in their last nine
Premier League games with six of them being victories.

United have more
experience

All these matches are always hard fought and as Nemanja Vidic
said on United’s website, maybe United’s luck at the Bridge will change today.
“I think our performances in the last two or three years away were really good.
Now I’m thinking maybe we should play badly and win the game!

Maybe that’s the name of the game now!”

“Obviously, we’ve been unlucky in a few games and I hope this
time we have that luck and come back with a good result.”

Manchester United boasts the best defence in Europe this season,
having conceded only two goals but have been low scorers too with only nine
goals scored.

Also, the Red Devils can say that out of 16 quarterfinal
matches, they have won 11 and lost five, though Chelsea boasts of a good record
on the continent in the last five years -making the semi-final on four
occasions out of five. But Carlo Ancelotti believes it may be their destiny
that 2011 could finally be the year that Chelsea triumphs in Europe considering
the failure or ill-luck of Moscow.

Ancelotti said in today’s pre-match press conference, “John
Terry is not happy about what he lost in that game and that could be a good
motivation because this could be a destiny.” Enough has been said, let the
fireworks be lit.

With football fans
across the globe angling for tickets for the final of UEFA Champions
League, five Nigerians will today get lucky and win an all-expense paid
trip to London to watch the game.

This will be
courtesy of a draw by Heineken Nigeria for its consumers. The company
will tonight at its Champions League Planet House, during the second
set of quarter-final matches, pick the five individuals who will watch
the highly anticipated final encounter at the Wembley Stadium.

With each passing
year, the Champions League has grown in stature, attracting more
following across the globe. This has inevitably had the effect of
pushing up the cost of tickets.

This year’s final
match is expected to attract a minimum of £150 plus a £26
administration fee for general sale while the cheapest category four
tickets available through the clubs go for £80 but, the final cost may
be more, considering the fact that the bulk will come through ‘black
market’ purchase.

However, this
evening at the Heineken Planet House, five lucky Nigerians among the
numerous consumers that had been invited to the House for the matches
since February, will have the privilege of being among the 90,000 that
will watch the final match of the competition.

Besides watching
the final match, the lucky winners will partake of the numerous
activities lined up by UEFA as Heineken is one of the major sponsors of
the competition.

This evening’s
draws will take place intermittently during the live telecast of the
Chelsea/Manchester United clash and FC Barcelona versus Shakhtar
Donetsk quarterfinal duels, with the first two winners emerging before
the kickoff while at the interval, the remaining three winners will be
chosen from the lot.

The consumers,
assembled from different locations nationwide along with celebrities,
with former members of the Super Eagles and business leaders have been
guests at the Planet House located in Victoria Island, Lagos, for all
the matches from the second knockout stages of the competition.

Tonight, apart from
witnessing the break-or-bend first leg match at Stamford Bridge between
the English Premiership foes Chelsea and Manchester United, guests and
consumers will hold their breath in anticipation of who the lucky
winners would be.

Last season, Heineken sponsored five consumers -Funmi Taiwo, Chiwedu
Chukwu, Animashaun Kabir, Akeme Solomon and Taiwo Ajayi to the final
match between eventual winners, Inter Milan of Italy and Bayern Munich
of Germany.

On September 21,
2010, my column titled: ‘God fearing women and men needed’ started
with: ‘Men wanted for hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long
hours of complete darkness, constant danger and safe return doubtful.
Honour and recognition in the event of success’. This was an advert
placed by Ernest Shackleton in the Times, in 1913, asking people to
join in his 1915 Antarctic expedition.

Here in this great
nation at a time like this, it is not only men that are needed. Women,
too, are needed, particularly in sports journalism, to assist in saving
sports in Nigeria. I am, therefore, praying that God, the greatest
sportsman Himself, will raise men and women, competent, credible, bold,
proactive and forward-looking, who will be willing to embark on this
journey with us.

My friend and
colleague, Tayo Balogun, a veteran sports writer, published an article
titled: ‘No sports writer will make heaven’. The write-up was culled
from his book titled: Will Anything Change?

My first reaction
was to immediately reject his submission as regards sports writers not
making heaven. As far as I am concerned, I will make heaven. How could
I go through all the ‘wahala’ of this world, especially in this
wonderful country, and yet not make it to heaven? In fact, I reject it
once more. I don’t know about Tayo himself, or about my editor or any
other sports journalist, but as for me, Paulo, heaven is my eternal
home.

But Tayo’s write-up
is so interesting, that I wish it could be syndicated for publication
in all our national newspapers. He did not just concentrate on sport
journalists. Mention is made of automobile mechanics and lawyers, who
are referred to as leeches and liars respectively. Tayo says a friend
of his once told him that, were he to meet members of the press in
heaven, he would know immediately that he had missed his way or maybe
something had gone drastically wrong. According to Tayo’s friend, those
whose trade it is to set things right, are themselves involved in
turning those things the wrong way.

Like the mechanics
or their lawyer friends, journalists look to be sure candidates for
hell. They lie, prostitute and cheat. Like lawyers, they turn black
into white. So if no journalist will make heaven, it follows that no
sports writer will be spared this horrendous state of nothingness
called hell, in the hereafter because, according to him, the average
Nigerian sports writer is odious.

He is a bad
imitation of the Nigerian on the street. He hankers after ‘brown
envelopes’, not news. That, according to Tayo, is why so many truths
would remain blurred in the mind of sports journalists. That is why
there is always magic in the decision-making process of our sports
policies.

Tayo continues, by
mentioning that sports journalists are not only supposed to reflect the
society in which they find themselves, but must also serve as catalysts
for the needed change, to turn the society around.

He goes on to quote
Effiong Nyong, another journalist in Lagos who, according to Tayo, told
a television audience that maybe the journalist succumbs to undue
monetary influence, because to do otherwise would mean exposing his
family to hunger and deprivation, and so for a long time, sports
writers have remained a laughing stock.

At press
conferences, ‘journalists’ without sponsoring media houses, are seen
scampering for crumbs. They visit the houses of sports policy
formulators to ask for money to buy batteries for radio sets or ask for
money to buy recharge cards. Tayo is not done yet. He goes on to state
that it remains business as usual, crazy and no one cares.

He says: “It is amazing no one dares to bring about a change. Not
the SWAN (Sports Writers Association of Nigeria) that is criminally
corrupt, so skewed, it has always found it easy to foster nincompoops
on itself, as leaders…” Well, what do fellow Nigerians think about
this? Nigerian sports must be saved.