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Articles by Oluwashina Okeleji

14 Sep 2018
… Nigerians are psychologically hardwired to blame the victim It can be difficult to determine precisely where Nigerian football went off the rails, what with the constant sense of bickering and chaos through the years. However, according to former international and assistant coach Joe Erico, we have only to go as far back as 2002.…
31 Aug 2018
The second phase of Gernot Rohr’s Super Eagles rebuilding project will officially kick off when Nigeria takes on Seychelles in Victoria next weekend. The stakes are quite high for the three-time African champions. To miss out on an Africa Cup of Nations would once have been considered unthinkable, but the last two editions have gone…
17 Aug 2018
The African Athletics Championship, held in Asaba, has come and gone to much uproar and excitement. Depending on what side of the fence (a fence created by the organising committee, as it were) you are on, it was either a roaring success or a colossal embarrassment. As far as the actual organising of the event…
27 Jul 2018
That, one hopes, will be that. A Presidential directive for the rule of law to be enforced saw Chris Giwa, long-time claimant to the Nigeria Football Federation...
13 Jul 2018
By the end of the 2012 European season, John Obi Mikel had won everything there was to win at club level. Premier League titles, FA Cups and then, in Munich, a much-coveted UEFA Champions League crown, becoming only the third Nigerian footballer ever to claim that honour.
29 Jun 2018
As the curtain comes down on Nigeria’s run at the World Cup in Russia, there are a number of contrasting emotions.
15 Jun 2018
The FIFA World Cup, with its special charm, is here once more. It is the culmination of four years of toil and sweat, the release being a month-long festival of football. For a nation like Nigeria, it is more than simply a footballing event. There is the tacit understanding that, while the sport can throw…
25 May 2018
It is quite remarkable how efficiently everything surrounding the national football team is running. The Super Eagles provisional list for next month’s World Cup...
11 May 2018
In one of the most iconic lines in cinema, Michael Corleone bemoans, “Just when I think I’m out, they pull me back in!” Just when you think you’ve said all there is to say about the Honourable Minister of Sport, Solomon Dalung, he goes and does something entirely incomprehensible.
27 Apr 2018
Just last week, the draw for the Group Stage of the CAF Confederation Cup was held in Cairo. While four Nigerian clubs contested the final round of qualifying, only one made it through to represent the country: Enyimba.
13 Apr 2018
Nigerians are a proud people. For us, there is no greater source of pride, aside personal achievement, than pointing out our connection to someone else’s success story. That explains to some degree quite why Sunday Oliseh is such a polarising figure today. Equal parts hero and villain; and even, for some, both strands run parallel…
30 Mar 2018
The saying goes that a team is only as good as its last result. However, the obvious fallacy of this statement is apparent when one zooms out and takes Tuesday’s friendly loss to Serbia in the right context.