{"id":3040,"date":"2022-01-09T06:01:56","date_gmt":"2022-01-09T06:01:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathematical7.com\/m7\/?p=3040"},"modified":"2022-01-14T15:05:43","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T15:05:43","slug":"nigeria-at-afcon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathematical7.com\/m7\/nigeria-at-afcon\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigeria at AFCON."},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">3 days to the start of AFCON 2021, there is hardly any Nigerian that expects that the\u00a0<b><i>Super Eagles<\/i><\/b>\u00a0will not get to the tail end of the championship. Such a high expectation is justified.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Nigeria can be counted amongst one of the most consistent and most successful countries in the history of AFCON since the country started to participate in Africa\u2019s most prestigious football championship in 1963.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">A quick glance at the statistics of the country\u2019s performances since 1976, in particular, to date, explains why the\u00a0<b><i>Super Eagles<\/i><\/b>\u00a0are always considered by many unbiased pundits as one of the favourites despite all the\u00a0<b><i>kata kata\u00a0<\/i><\/b>(crisis) that often surrounds the team, particularly, as in the present instance, poorly handling the technical content of the team so close to the championship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">This seeming exalted status was first earned on the field of performance in 1976. At Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, the\u00a0<b><i>Green Eagles<\/i><\/b>\u00a0emerged fully unto the top echelon of African football. Nigeria\u2019s national team coach, Yugoslavian football teacher and coach, Yelisavic Tito, assembled a team of individually gifted players for the different positions on the field, and gave them the freedom to express themselves and to play to their natural strengths. He gave them a simple overall team strategy \u2013 attack, attack and attack through the flanks. He did not try to complicate matters with patterns and systems that could not have been mastered on the poor grounds of domestic Nigerian football.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The players whose chance to play in the national team came because established stars failed to respond to the invitation to the national camp and held the country to ransom, seized the opportunity, determined not to relinquish the positions, and played like spiritually-possessed persons. They followed Father Tiko\u2019s strict but simple instructions, and started to shine brilliantly. These unknown gifted players soon became the toast of African football.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">From the 1976 championship, the continents two best wingers on the right and left sides of attack were discovered \u2013 Kunle Awesu and Baba Otu Mohammed.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">One of Nigeria\u2019s greatest midfield players, Mudashiru Lawal rose to the top of African football awareness. The talents of Thompson Usiyen blossomed brightly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">It was in 1976 that Nigeria\u2019s real football identity was carved and first put on display in Africa. It was the first step in the proper development of a style for Nigerian football built on the back of players\u2019 natural skills and ability, and maximally utilized without too many complicated technical or tactical instructions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Throughout the 1970s, Nigeria\u2019s football system on the field was not well organized. It could not be because the country lacked good grounds for consistent training and rehearsals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">So, Father Tiko looked for natural talents for every position on the field and made the players to play in accordance to their strengths.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">At the end of that championship, from no records of previous achievements, Nigeria established its unique style of physicality combined with individual expressiveness, speed and one-way traffic of always going forward and ceaselessly attacking opposing defenses. The team had no time for backwards and sideways, endless ball passing!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">That style took Africa by storm. Only the organized play of North African teams could de-code it and neutralize its impact.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The team came out of AFCON 1976 in Third-place. With a little bit of better organization and tactical discipline it had the talent to have won the championship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">1978 merely reinforced the \u2018discovery\u2019 in 1976. Tiko did not change his style. He made the players master it. His organized defensive strategy was to use strong and hard defenders to neutralize opponents. His team spent most of the time launching waves of attacks time, and mostly down the flanks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">When it worked, it often resulted in great goals, and was a delight to watch.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\">\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The team could have won the 1978 AFCON but missed it narrowly due to that deficit of tactical depth at one critical moment during one a quarter-final group match. The\u00a0<b><i>Green Eagles<\/i><\/b>\u00a0got to the semi-finals.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Playing at speed and using empty spaces behind defenses became the hallmark of Nigerian football, \u2018beauty and the beast\u2019, the \u2018beauty\u2019 being the team\u2019s attacking flair with almost \u2018reckless\u2019 abandon, and the \u2018beast\u2019 the deficit in overall defensive organisation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">In 1980, the country won, despite the team\u2019s known weaknesses, by reinforcing the team\u2019s strengths with some new South American flair and flamboyance, and by sustaining the established simple strategies and style, and deploying both to maximum use playing on home-ground.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">It would have been a major set-back had the team failed to win.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">What did the additional transformation were the three months spell training and playing matches on the lush green fields of Brazil, taking lessons from losing many of the matches against Brazilian teams, and using them as stepping stone to higher ground.\u00a0\u00a0That transition became the bedrock of Nigeria\u2019s most successful era, one that has made Nigeria the powerful force that the country\u2019s football has become in global football today, a team that can only be taken for granted by teams seeking defeat. The Eagles became capable of defeating any team on earth on their good day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">In the 1980\u2019s decade, the team got to the finals 3 times, always a difficult opponent to play against, and were always on the periphery of success.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Into the 1990s, despite the arrival of distractions by the conflicts in football administration and incursion of politics into football affairs, the country climbed to the top by winning the 1994 AFCON most emphatically, and playing the best brand of the new Nigerian brand of football.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Two years after that, they dropped to the bottom of the heap, a fall that was the product of political interference. The country foolishly withdrew from one the 1996 championships that she could have won, and was barred from the next in 1998 as a consequence. The\u00a0<b><i>hara-kiri<\/i><\/b>that set in affected the next three editions into the 2000s, and the team\u2019s established structure was destroyed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The country did not find its feet again properly. Led by a Nigerian, and amidst crisis that had become a recurring decimal in Nigerian football administration, the country won the 2013 version. Since then, with foreign coaches in charge that not grounded in the fundamental philosophy of Nigerian football, and introduced all manner styles into the team, the country\u2019s football floundered, oscillating between bad and worse through the AFCONs in that era, to date.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">In Egypt, at the 2019, AFCON, the team got to the semi-finals, but was almost unrecognizable from the free-flowing, all-attacking team that was the culture of Nigerian football. The national team since then has been mostly influenced by players drawn from European clubs without proper grounding in Nigerian football.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">It has been looking more and more like a team lost in limbo, with foreign coaches from Europe, players mostly bred on the foundations of European football trying to play in Africa. The teams have been neither here nor there.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">That is the setting going to AFCON 2021 that starts in 3 days\u2019 time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">No one is sure of what would happen.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">A Nigerian interim coach has been hurriedly put in charge, with a foreign coach ungrounded in Nigerian football breathing down his neck and waiting to take over irrespective of the outcome of the championship.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">It is a perfect setting for Augustine Eguavoen to fail, even as he has\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">limited time to imbibe in the mostly \u2018foreign-bred\u2019 players the Nigerian football culture and spirit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Despite that, he must not fail.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">What is certain, on the eve of the championship is that, as has been the practice, and knowing the natural place of the\u00a0<b><i>Super Eagles<\/i><\/b>\u00a0in African football, no matter the circumstances, the Eagles shall be at the tail end, stretching out to breast the tape in a \u2018photo-finish\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Will the Super Eagles win it? Can they win it?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">The answer is blowing in the wind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"ydpe76ff10aMsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN-US\">Good luck\u00a0<b><i>Super Eagles<\/i><\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>3 days to the start of AFCON 2021, there is hardly any Nigerian that expects that the\u00a0Super Eagles\u00a0will not get to the tail end of the championship. Such a high expectation is justified. \u00a0 Nigeria can be counted amongst one of the most consistent and most successful countries in the history of AFCON since the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3030,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-football"],"gutentor_comment":0,"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Nigeria at AFCON. - Mathematical 7<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/mathematical7.com\/m7\/nigeria-at-afcon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Nigeria at AFCON. - Mathematical 7\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"3 days to the start of AFCON 2021, there is hardly any Nigerian that expects that the\u00a0Super Eagles\u00a0will not get to the tail end of the championship. 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