Nigerian Football in 2017!
I cannot help but be philosophical the first week into the New Year.
Although I am looking into Nigerian football, the rest of Africa can drink from my thoughts.
In a year with no major success story anywhere, I see ahead a blank canvas waiting for creative hands in 2017.
The main ‘tragedy’ of the past year is that, even when the country finally won something it could have celebrated towards the end of the year, that victory was smeared with the paint of an ugly incident that had better be quickly set aside.
The victorious heroines of the African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON), after a successful campaign, embarrassingly became marchers on the streets of Abuja, the country’s capital, for two whole weeks, protesting the failure of those in charge of sports to pay them their hard-earned statutory allowances and bonuses for the series of matches they played and won.
Super Falcons protesting the failure of NFF to pay their allowances and bonuses for the matches they played and won at 2016 AWCON.
That incident marred what could have been one of the few moments worth celebrating.
In 2017, we need a new song and Nigeria must take lessons from sport.
Past failure in sport are the bread and butter of future success.
It is the tonic of successful athletes. It is what drives athletes to new heights, to set new records in time and distance.
It is what challenges them and makes them extend the human capacity to do extraordinary things. Yes, past failure is an athlete’s greatest tool as well as his incentive to succeed! Ask all the great athletes in history– that song is the same!
That’s what Nigeria must draw from now – its past failures.
To come first in an event is great, but there are times also in sports when silver and bronze, and even just giving one’s best performance, becomes as good as gold.
That’s the thin line that must be understood by those in government.
In 2016, Leicester City was not the best football team in the world.
They did not win the World Club championship, nor did they even qualify for it.
Yet early this week, 382 journalists, members of the International Sports Press Association from 110 countries around the world, voted Leicester City the Global Team of 2016 because of the stunning manner they won the 2015/2016 English Premiership for the very first time in their history.
The Nigerian women’s 4 X 100 metres sprints quartet at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 did not win that epic relay finals race. They came third.
But it was the manner of their coming third and celebrating it that made the world of athletics consider them the best example of the true essence and spirit of the Olympics – that you do not have to come first to be a winner!
Sports abound with so many stories of great triumphs against all the odds.
The best part of sport, as is the best part of life, is in the journey itself. Yet that road is a long, torturous and lonely journey, littered every inch of the way with challenges, pain and failures.
The sportsman, driven by his passion, learns to navigate that route gladly with joy on his face and with his eyes riveted on the prize. He sets an example for the rest of humanity.
Athletes know that the only guarantee to success is that there is no guarantee at the end of the day, yet they must live as if they have already won the race even before its starts.
They must live it in their daily lives, training hard, failing agonisingly most of the time, going back to the drawing board, training again, working with coaches, trainers, psychologists, doctors, agents, but all the time singing the song of hope that they will succeed. About 99 percent of them never achieve their dream, but the history of man is full of heroic exploits, of effort and of inspiring stories by 100 percent of them.
As 2017 births, I am enlisting into the ‘army’ that will embark on the journey to greatness with Nigerian football.
It will take hard work, integrity, honesty, teamwork, the winning attitude, the never-say-die spirit and avoiding the pitfalls of past failures.
I am familiar with that territory through sports and, therefore, invite all to that world of faith and hope!
I wish all my readers a wonderful and beautiful New Year.
Culled from supersport.com
QUOTE: “As 2017 births, I am enlisting into the ‘army’ that will embark on the journey to greatness with Nigerian football. It will take hard work, integrity, honesty, teamwork, the winning attitude, the never-say-die spirit and avoiding the pitfalls of past failures. I am familiar with that territory through sports and, therefore, invite all to that world of faith and hope!”
QUOTE 2: “The main ‘tragedy’ of the past year is that, even when the country finally won something it could have celebrated towards the end of the year, that victory was smeared with the paint of an ugly incident that had better be quickly set aside. The victorious heroines of the African Women’s Cup of Nations (AWCON), after a successful campaign, embarrassingly became marchers on the streets of Abuja, the country’s capital, for two whole weeks, protesting the failure of those in charge of sports to pay them their hard-earned statutory allowances and bonuses for the series of matches they played and won.”
