1
As the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) awaits the verdict of FIFA on the petition against the Democratic Republic of Congo, it means that AFCON’s most decorated nine-time Bronze medalist, the ‘Super Eagles’ the Nigerian men’s national football team, continues the search for the ticket to the FIFA World Cup 26 to be held in United States (the venue of the debut outing in 1994), and supported by the Mexican and Canadian co-hosts. It is expected that the fast Super Eagles’ attack anchored by the duo of Victor Osimhen (2023) and Ademola Lookman (2024), the penultimate and immediate past CAF POTY, should viciously blow away the Jamaican opposition in Mexico in a sweet manner as the top seeded team in the intercontinental playoff.
In the course of the topsy-turvy campaign where points have been lost from winning positions and victories from the jaw of defeats, emotions have been let out without feelings, which describes the NFF’s emotionally misplaced press release (later tagged as ‘unauthorised’ and revised) laden with unprovoked attack on the duo of Cyriel Dessers and Captain Troost-Ekong, the aftermath of the one-all draw against the South Africans in Bloemfontein. Dessers who was the 2024/2025 season’s top scorer in the Scottish Premiership was rudely described as having “an unimpressive game in Uyo where he turned out to be a substitute that was substituted, did not have a better game as he was too slow to latch onto passes, could not win aerial balls and did little in bringing alive the Nigerian attack.” While the skipper Troost-Ekong also the 2023 AFCON Player of the Tournament was not spared as a result of the own goal scored and characterized as the sacrificial lamb as “The Super Eagles’ fighting spirit was diminished for a period after team captain William Ekong inadvertently swept the ball into his own net in the 25th minute, wrong-footing Stanley Nwabali to give the Bafana the lead and great impetus.”
The own goal immediately drew comparisons with the most popular own goal scored in Nigeria’s football history on 12th November 1977 by Godwin Odiye (MON) in another World Cup qualifier campaign against the Tunisians in Lagos. And it is almost impossible to be involved with the round leather game in Nigeria and not echo ‘Odiye’ when an own goal is scored as the own goal gained notoriety more because of the several inaccuracies left uncorrected over time attached to the own goal by Odiye.
The draw for the 1978 World Cup was already tilted against Nigeria as the Eagles featured in the match days 1 to 4, meaning the two other opponents (Tunisia and Egypt) would play themselves on match day 5 and 6 respectively while Nigeria’s position was already presumably determined at match day 4! Hence if the situation was reversed and Odiye had scored for Nigeria instead of against the Green Eagles, they would have been on a maximum 5 pts, while the Egyptians could amass a possible 7pts and the Tunisians 5pts because of the extra two games in hand!
By providence, Odiye, who secured the AFCON title on home soil in 1980, never became another Moacir Barbosa, the Brazilian goalkeeper who is more renowned for the ‘Maracanazo’ the term for the 1950 World Cup disaster on home soil after he conceded a goal scored by Alcides Ghiggia, who died on the 65th anniversary of the 1950 triumph (the first player to score in every match at the World Cup) in the last group match when a draw would have made the Brazilians a first time World Champions, not even his triumph with Vasco da Gama in the 1948 South American Championship of Champions (precursor to the Copa Libertadores) nor his 1949 emphatic and unequalled till date highest margin 7-0 victory in the final of the Copa America with the National Team was enough to atone for the ‘error’ of 1950, a defeat felt more than Mineirazo (national humiliation) on home soil in the 1-7 defeat by the Germans was enough to forget the ‘costly’ error of the brilliant Barbosa who had no chance at redemption. Barbosa could not understand his isolation 50 years after when the maximum punishment in Brazil was for 30 years! It is true that Ghiggia goal secured the title for the Uruguayans.
It is equally untrue that Odiye’s own goal was the sole reason the team was edged out of the 1978 World Cup qualifiers, and like the African adage, truth is like fire that cannot be covered with dry leaves.
*Ajala FCA, former presenter, Eagle Sports Hour on Eagle Cable Television
