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Last week was not
the best football wise. You see we have a challenge in my home. We all
like football from the youngest (10 year old) to the oldest but we
belong to different camps – I am a die hard Arsenal fan whilst my
better half is Man U for life. Using my veto power, I have managed to
convert everyone else in the family to a Gunner. Of course you can
imagine the situation the day the two teams are playing against each
other.

But, as the saying goes love conquers all. This past week was however not a good one for the entire household.

Arsenal’s humiliation

First was Arsenal’s
loss to Barcelona. I was consoled and taunted a bit but I held my cool.
Come Wednesday, I was the one doing the consoling. I managed to
restrain myself from making statements such as “the rich also cry” or
“how are the mighty fallen”. Since both our teams have now been ejected
from the UEFA championship, we obviously needed to adopt another team
to support (albeit temporarily). In spite of the pain inflicted on
Arsenal, I really do not have a choice but to adopt Barcelona. Inter
Milan would have been preferable but the posturing of Jose Morinho are
a bit too much for my Oyo-girl sensibilities! We have also decided to
step down somewhat and begin to follow more closely the UEFA Europa
championship. Liverpool having advanced to the last four is
representing the English premiership in that tournament. That’s
football for you; the much touted teams – Man U and Arsenal are out of
the UEFA champions league whilst Liverpool struggling to attain a top
four position in the premiership league gets to advance to the last
four of the UEFA Europa championship. Though not as prestigious as the
UEFA champions league it is still Europe and winning the cup would give
silverware to Liverpool this season unlike Arsenal which is looking
like having nothing to hold aloft again this season. From all
indications, Arsene Wenger should now be looking to dump the ‘catch
them young and grow them’ policy and just splash some cash on
experience.

The day after

The hullabaloo that
followed Arsenal’s loss seemed to me not to be as great as the coverage
of Man U’s loss to Bayern Munich. Or was it the goals scored that made
the difference? After all many pundits had written Arsenal off this
season and did not expect the team to advance this far. I am not a
conspiracy theorist under any guise and based on my professional
background would typically focus on facts but the uproar was in my
opinion unprecedented. I console myself with this thought though that
at least we succeeded in temporarily taking the heat off Man U
following its 2-1 loss to Chelsea! Last week also brought home the fact
that some players are like good luck charms for their teams. Using the
word ‘key’ for these set of players is an understatement. Man U without
Wayne Rooney is like Arsenal without Cesc Fabregas. Liverpool without
Steven Gerrard is like Barcelona without Lionel Messi. I also know this
for sure; Nigeria is finished if he continues in this form in the World
cup. There is no way (unless there is divine intervention) that the
tired legs in the Nigerian team’s defence can cope with a rampant
Messi. So all this talk of the super Eagles (I cringe using the word
‘super’ hence the small ‘s’) attaining semi-final position in the
oncoming FIFA World cup is rather bewildering to me. Are these people
from Mars or is this the usual Nigerian talk ourselves into feeling
good situation without actually doing anything to implement factor?

New minister, old solution

Which leads me to
the issue of the new sports minister – if as it is claimed the country
needs to create 24 million jobs over the next 10 years to reduce its
unemployment rate and majority of our 140m plus population are youths,
it’s a no brainer that sports should be one of the areas we should
focus on. This is not just about football but the other sports –
athletics, tennis, boxing all sports that Nigeria used to excel in
internationally but no more.

I pray this week will be better for us all whether you are a Man U
or Arsenal supporter. To paraphrase Richard Quest of CNN’s ‘Quest means
Business’ may this week be profitable for us all football wise!