Making the beautiful game ugly, By Odi Ikpeazu

Nigeria is out of the race for the Qatar World Cup. If you didn’t know already, you will probably get the picture if you visit the vandalized Abiola Stadium, venue of the match. By the way, where did the mob get the notion that Nigeria has a divine right to defeat Ghana?

That notwithstanding though, one can easily discern that so many Nigerians can’t seem to hide their glee at our loss. Yes, that is true. A huge swathe of Nigerians are over the moon at our defeat. Many are openly doing somersaults while most of the ones who try to pretend otherwise are not much good at it. Such a nation of masochists you will probably never see elsewhere.

Predictably, chief among these jubilant psychos are neo-Igbos of the separatist-marginalization persuasion, who always wish the worst for that zoo that is always running around in their brains. Not far behind come the denizens of the Yoruba nasion, for whom the loss, like every set back, must be a further justification that Nigerian should break up.

Then there is that pompous and fastidious lot, those know-it-alls, who feel that their relatively recent acquaintance with European football gives them the gumption to turn up their bulbous noses at everything about Nigerian football. And how they embarrass some of us who have been conversant with the English league for much longer, experiencing it from its relative infancy when we used to sit on ruthless, roofless concrete slabs in snow and blizzard, watching the players play in those muddy trenches they called football pitches. Anyway, that is by the way.

There is also that segment of ill wishers, harbingers of bad faith such as the EndSars legion and the perennial partisan political antagonists, who would doubtless see the loss of the game as confirmation that ‘Nigeria is a failed state’, their pet phrase.

How about the hundred million or so opinionated arm chair and beer joint football coaches, who have very conceited albeit neophyte concepts about what formations the team should play and the players that must play them. Their vindication at our loss manifests itself in either unbridled or ill-veiled jubilation, punctuated by triumphant hints of ‘I told you so!’

Another set that quite riles me is that dishonest, two-faced, thoroughly shameless bunch who campaigned vigorously for the replacement of Gerhadt Rohr with a local coach only to quickly turn around the morning after the game and feign righteous indignation at the NFF for appointing a local coach! Many of them have actually demanded the resignation of the NFF, which does not surprise me much since I am even expecting them to ask for the stepping down of their favourite whipping boy from Daura.

I am naturally disappointed that we lost the game but I am not too emotional, ignorant or stupid as not to understand that football can be a strange affair, that anyone can beat anyone, that shocks and ecstasy come with the territory and that this is why it is called the beautiful game, of which we will never get tired. I plan to be in Qatar for the World Cup, where I would have lent my modest support to the Eagles just as I did at the Copa del Mundo in Brazil, 2015. The atmosphere is really unbelievable at these major tournaments. I will now have to urge the Black Stars on from my little corner, which is not a bad idea since they are our good neighbours.

Over the two legs of the tie, I think that the Ghanaian team slightly edged the Nigerian selection and conceivably deserve to be at the tournament at their expense. However, they will surely need to raise their game even though they will never exactly be among the favourites.

Meanwhile, my most heartfelt prayer is for Nigerians, that they may try and quit being babies, grow up and behave themselves, not just in football matters but in virtually every sphere of life honestly. They should try and stop laying every blame for their misdemeanors at the doorsteps of the entity called Nigeria. Nigeria is an inanimate object, a non living thing. It is they, Nigerians, who give it any life such as it has.

It is indeed difficult to decide if these people who give her life are prodigal or merely juvenile but either way, their behaviour leaves a lot to be desired. It really makes a man wonder why the British granted them independence so early in 1960. They might have tarried a while. 2020 might have been a more reasonable date whereby enough civilizing might have taken place in the intervening period.