BY BEN MEMULETIWON/Port Harcourt
“Hope is the last gift given to man,” Oscar Wilde, an Irish poet and playwright, wrote in one of his epics. The poet, who became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s, also said, “Hope is the greatest happiness, we (humans) may allow ourselves.”
Well, Wilde may have had Nigeria in mind when he wrote those evergreen lines.
Hope didn’t rain in Port Harcourt where the who-is-who in Nigerian football gathered, on Tuesday, in a one-day seminar jointly organised by the Rivers State Government and The Sun newspapers, it poured. Indeed, if hope were the sine qua non for winning the cup, the Super Eagles would win the tournament without kicking a ball in Russia!
That is judging from the profuse enthusiasm exhibited by most of the participants at the seminar when The Crest asked them to make projections about the chances of the national soccer team at the biggest football festival in the world.
.The seminar with the theme: That Super Eagles may excel in Russia 2018 and Beyond, held at the Hotel Presidential, in the Rivers State capital, with many football aficionados gracing the event. The event was the first of its kind in the chequered history of Nigeria’s participation at the global soccer fiesta, when the national team made its debut in the United States in 1994. The late Rashidi Yekini scored Nigeria’s first ever world cup goal at that year’s event.
The first black African to handle a national team at the World Cup, and ex-Super Eagles’ coach, Chief Adegboye Oniginde, as well as one of the best sports technocrats Nigeria has ever produced, Dr. Patrick Ekeji, were among sports icons who delivered papers and were highly optimistic about the chances of the Super Eagles.
“I am expecting the cup in Nigeria,” Onigbinde, a FIFA instructor told The Crest. “But the team must be physically, mentally and technically fit. I don’t see how Argentina, Brazil or Germany can beat the Super Eagles.”
Ekeji, who shared Onigbinde’s sentiment, expressed optimism about the present crop of the Eagles and said anything could happen in Russia if the team remained united and focussed.”
Onigbinde endorsed Ekeji’s optimism, declaring: “In 1998, some of the players were not talking to themselves. But if the coach can tutor the players to play as a gang, then winning the trophy is a possibility.”
A football buff, Maxwell Peters, who claimed to be a civil servant in the Rivers State capital, believed the national team would do well in Russia but he advised against setting the bar too high for them.
“It is good to hope and be hopeful,” he said. “But to tip the Super Eagles to win the cup in Russia is over ambitious. It is a grand illusion. And it could put the players under undue pressure. The team should do well, all things being equal. But winning the cup is a tall order.”
Rivers State Governor, Oyesom Wike, who flagged off the event, electrified the hall with his presence as his retinue of officials and supporters, as well as some local praise singers turned the hall into a festival.
Wike expressed confidence in the national team, reiterating his government’s support. Many in the audience anticipated that the Governor would rain dollars on the players. He disappointed them. Instead, he promised to ‘spoil’ the team a little when the city hosts their international friendly match against DR Congo next week.
The match is the only friendly the Eagles will play in the country before moving to Europe for matches against Poland and England.
Before Wike mounted the podium, Eric Osagie, Managing Director of The Sun, disclosed that the import of the one-day seminar was to sensitise Nigerians and solicit their support for the national team insisting that Nigeria has come of age in global football. “And there is no better time for Nigeria to win the World Cup than now,” Osagie enthused.
Other discussants at the event, which also had Mallam Danladi Bako, ace broadcaster and former Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission, NBC, in attendance, included Chief Emeka Inyama and Fanny Amun, former Chief Coach of the Golden Eaglets. They were all bitten by the bug of optimism that Nigeria would not be an also-run at the World Cup.
Inyama said Nigeria was overdue for a podium performance at the global level having conquered the world severally at the Under-17 level. Amun, on his part, believed that the greatest weapon of the team was the relative young ages of the players.
