Team Nigeria, Strong Or Mediocre -By Onoshe Nwabuikwu

I know ‘mediocre’ is not exactly the opposite of ‘strong’; I’m only playing on the hashtag, #Team9jaStrong, used by supporters of Nigeria’s national football teams. Anyhow, my other options aren’t much better. Or how about Team9jaStrong, jazzed, home trouble or village people? On a more serious note, Nigeria’s football teams aren’t performing well at the moment. By the way, if you’re not a football fan, I apologise for taking your time thus far. However, football has been taking a chunk of my airtime since the European football league ended in May and all sorts of football competitions began to spring up. For the purpose of this write up, let’s focus on those competitions where Nigeria has competed or is competing.

Let’s begin with the 2019 U-20 FIFA World Cup hosted by Poland from May 23 to June 15. Placed in Group D alongside USA, Qatar and eventual winners, Ukraine, our Flying Eagles won their first match by beating Qatar 4-0. That match on May 24 generated a lot of expectations, but three days later, the USA beat Nigeria 0-2. The Flying Eagles managed to get a 1-1 draw against Ukraine which must be some consolation. With 4 points, Nigeria advanced to the second round as the best placed third team also called the best loser.

Unfortunately, the best loser, more often than not, is paired with the leader of another group, which was how Nigeria got Senegal, who had topped Group A with 7 points. Not to be overly dramatic, but Senegal knocked Nigeria out by winning 1-2. That brought an end to all the ‘naijamaths/naijarithmetics’. All that ‘If Team A does this or if Team B doesn’t show up on the day, then Nigeria would win’ permutations got knocked out. I’m writing here as someone who can easily be the chairperson of this ‘If Club’. When it comes to ‘football mathematics’, especially concerning Nigeria’s teams, I am an expert.

This brings me to the FIFA Women’s World Cup taking place in France. The tournament, which began on June 7, is still on. However, by the time you read this, our girls should be home because our next opponent in the knockout stage is Germany. Just so you know, in the seven editions of the Women’s World Cup, USA has won three times and Germany twice. Germany has also finished in the top four three other times. So, no, I’m not holding my breath (or racking my ‘Naijarithmetically’ ingenious mind) that the Super Falcons will beat Germany. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Just like the Flying Eagles, in the group stage, the Super Falcons won one match against South Korea but lost two matches. With 3 points, there wasn’t much hope our girls would go on to the next round. The last time Nigeria got to the second round of the tournament was in 1999 (in USA); it also reached the quarterfinals and lost to Brazil. That match was decided via the golden goal rule when Nigeria came from being 0-3 at half-time to equalise 3-3. With 10 players in the ensuing extra time (because Patience Avre had received a second yellow card), Nigeria conceded a goal and that was the first time the golden goal rule was implemented at a Women’s World Cup. Nigeria finished seventh out of the 16 teams that competed. By the last edition in 2015 hosted by Canada, the Super Falcons finished twenty-first out of 24 teams. Did I mention that the Super Falcons have been African champions 11 out of 13 times?

In the 2019 edition of the Women’s World Cup, our girls lost 0-3 to Norway, won their second match 2-0 against South Korea on June 12 and lost under very controversial circumstances to hosts France 0-1 on June 17. The controversy was over FIFA’s new goalkeeping rule and use of VAR (video assistant referee). Although that same exact circumstance (against Scotland in their game with Argentina) is what helped Nigeria advance to the knockout stage. In spite of our girls’ victory, they played very badly, couldn’t string passes with any cohesion and they kept losing the ball. It was actually a surprise that we won, which was the reason I didn’t watch their match against France. But I learnt from comments on social media that in a space of 26 minutes, the Super Falcons lost the ball 47 times. Yet somehow, some said they played better than their previous matches.

I can tell you for free that of the African teams at this Women’s World Cup, Nigeria doesn’t have the best team. The South African team (Banyana Banyana) appearing for the first time and ranked 49 (Nigeria is ranked 38) played far better. Yet, Solomon Dalung, the former sports minister, is one of those President Muhammadu Buhari praised for serving the nation to the “best of their abilities” and that their “achievements in the last three and half years have guaranteed your position in the history books of this nation”.