2011: Year of misery, agony for Nigerian football

Apart from the Flying Eagles performance and the recent goals-scoring form of Yakubu Aiyegbeni, 2011 has been a hellish year for Nigerian football, reports ’TANA AIYEJINA

Nigeria’s football woes were completed in the outgoing year when the national U-23 team failed to qualify for the football event of the London 2012 Olympic Games earlier in the month.

It capped a year filled with woeful performances from all the national teams, except the national U-20 side, the Flying Eagles, who managed to salvage some pride for the country.

It was a year that saw the Super Eagles suffer elimination from the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations- the first time the team failed to qualify in 25 years.

But it all looked like 2011 was going to be a Cinderella year for football in Nigeria when the Flying Eagles won the African Youth Championship in South Africa for a record sixth time in March.

The feat qualified the team for the U-20 World Cup in Colombia between July and August but the Flying Eagles crashed out of the quarter-finals and that was how far the fairytale lasted.

Before then, three-time world champions, the Golden Eagles, failed to qualify for the U-17 World Cup in Mexico.

Earlier, African champions, the Super Falcons failed to match their 1999 feat when they reached the quarter-finals of the women’s World Cup as they crashed out once again in the group stage of the competition staged in Germany.

They lost their first two games to France and hosts Germany 1-0 respectively before managing a 1-0 win over Canada in their final group stage. But it was too little too late, as they ended up in third place in Group A.

Followers of the game were not surprised at the Falcons exit. The team has constantly failed to perform at global competitions despite their dominance of the African game.

But the entire country was stunned in May when the team failed to qualify for the football event of the Maputo 2011 All Africa Games, crashing out to bitter rivals, the Black Queens of Ghana.

The team coached by a former Falcons star, Eucharia Uche, became the first set of Falcons who could not qualify for a major championship, after exiting on 3-2 aggregate.

The ageing Nigerian side drew the first leg 1-1 in Abuja and seemed to be on the way to Maputo when striker Perpetua Nkwocha opened score in Accra but two goals from the Black Queens in the second period earned them a famous victory.

Uche, who was an assistant to Joseph Ladipo when the Falcons surrendered their African title for the first time in Equatorial Guinea three years ago, thus became the first coach of a women’s team in Nigeria to fail to qualify for a competition outside the country.

More misery awaited the team in October as they again shockingly failed to qualify for next year’s London Olympics. This time they were sent packing by another bitter rivals Cameroon, whom the Falcons bashed 5-1 last year in the African Women’s Championship in South Africa on their way to a sixth continental crown.

The Falcons lost to their Cameroonian counterparts 4-3 on penalties after aggregate scores stood at 3-3 Saturday.

They took a 2-1 advantage from the first leg in August in Abuja to Yaounde but lost by a similar margin to the 2011 All Africa Games gold medalists inside the Ahmadu Ahidjo Stadium.

The match tied at 3-3 aggregate but in the resulting penalty shootout, the Indomitable Lionesses triumphed 4-3 with defender Faith Ikidi missing the final kick for the Falcons.

Again it was the first time the Falcons would not feature at the Olympics since 2000 when the women football event was introduced at the games.

The Falcons’ failure to qualify for the Olympics was akin to rubbing salt in a fresh wound as the Eagles had failed to qualify for the Nations Cup few weeks before then.

Having trailed Guinea’s Syli Nationale from the opening day of the qualifiers in Group B, the Eagles needed a win to advance to the continent’s top football showpiece scheduled for Equatorial Guinea and Gabon in their final group game at the National Stadium, Abuja.

But it was drama aplenty as the Eagles failed to beat their West African rivals. After Ismael Bangoura gave the visitors a second-half lead, the Eagles looked to have turned it around with goals from Obinna Nsofor and Ikechukwu Uche.

But coach Samson Siasia urged his team on to go all out for the ‘vital’ third goal. But Ibrahima Traore’s goal deep into stoppage time ensured Guinea’s progress and meant Nigeria failed to qualify for the first time since 1986. The Syli Nationale went through instead as Group B winners.

Confederation of Africa Football’s criteria for qualification especially for second-placed teams seemed confusing. The Eagles thus went into the match feeling they needed to win 1-0, or by two clear goals should Guinea score, to book their place in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon.

Angry fans went berserk after the match destroying anything in their way. Doors were shattered and glass broken. The fans also wanted to vent their anger on the players and officials while also calling for the head of Siasia.

But it turned out that the Eagles could have qualified if they had won by any margin. Siasia, who pleaded to be given more time, was given the boot by the Nigeria Football Federation after initial foot-dragging, giving way for his captain during his playing days, Stephen Keshi, to take charge of the team.

The last chance of playing in a global competition therefore fell on the U-23 team but their elimination from the Olympics at the maiden African U-23 Championship in Morocco, which served as qualifiers for the event, turned out to be the final straw that put paid to Nigerian hopes.

After losing their first two games 1-0 and 2-1 to hosts Morocco and Senegal, the U-23 team walloped a young Algerian side 4-1 but still failed to advance to the last four of the competition.

One lesson from that defeat though was coach Austin Eguavoen’s resignation after the poorly assembled U-23 team put up one of the worst performances by a Nigerian side in recent times.

In a country where people hardly resign, Eguavoen deserves applause for showing Siasia and other Nigerian coaches the proper way to take a bow.

Two-time Africa champions Enyimba and domestic league runners-up Sunshine Stars gave the country’s teeming football populace something to cheer when they reached the semi-finals of the CAF Champions League and Confederation Cup respectively but they crashed out to North African opposition.

As has been the trend in recent years, Nigerian players struggled in Europe with only out-of-favour Eagles striker, Yakubu Aiyegbeni, posting scintillating performances in the English Premier League. The player has scored nine EPL goals and capped a wonderful end of year scoring all four goals as Blackburn hammered Swansea City 4-2.

Off the field, one controversy or the other trailed the NFF with the legality of the body questioned by many. But earlier in the month, NFF officials had cause to smile as the Federal High Court, Abuja ruled that the federation was legal.

The NFF office in Abuja was thrown into panic in May as policemen were called upon to quell a possible forceful take-over by a parallel group that named itself the Nigeria Football Association, the NFF’s former name.

The body’s head, Jared Tenebe, even threatened to lead a delegation of the NFA to Zurich to vote during the FIFA elections on June 1 even though NFF president Aminu Maigari was expected to vote in the elections on Nigeria’s behalf.