John Mastoroudes is the former proprietor of defunct Leventis United FC of Nigeria, one of the foremost private clubs in Nigerian football in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is acknowledged as one of the most knowledgeable persons on Nigerian football. He sent me a message from his base in Greece after watching Nigeria’s last match against Guinea-Bissau.

He wrote: “Guinea-Bissau?? What a disaster again, beyond my comprehension.”

I had been dumbstruck after the match, unable to make sense of what I witnessed – a truly hapless Nigerian national team.

For the first time, I was unable to respond to John because, very simply, I did not know what to tell him. There was no explanation for what I had just watched, how the players played, and what befell Nigerian football.

Finally, I sent him a single-worded message that spoke the state of my mind: “Speechless”.

Since then, the country has been enveloped in a canopy of silence. Nigeria was beaten hands down. The team was completely outplayed in all departments. The Super Eagles simply did not show up. They showed no style, no class, no guts, no grit, no spirit. They went through the motions of a caricature of European football, abandoning their foundation and motivation as leaders of a Race engrained with the spirit of always fighting, never giving up, fighting till the end with flair, power, speed, and athleticism. Even when we sometimes lose, we do so leaving the scars of battle on the football field. But not this time.

Last Tuesday, the Eagles walked out of the stadium in Guinea Bissau heads bowed, and tails tucked between their legs. Since then, Nigerians have been silenced. There is no one to ask what went wrong. There is no one to take responsibility or provide an answer.

I could not put my finger on anything beyond the consolation that in history, the last two times the Nigerian national team lost as badly as they did last week, although under different circumstances, Nigeria immediately bounced back. They came back from a 5-1 loss in the very first match of AFCON 1990 to get to the finals and to lose narrowly to the same Algerian team by 1-0.

In 1996, Nigeria also woke up from the slumber of a 4-1 defeat on home soil in a friendly in Lagos (main bowl of the National Stadium) against Togo. Their backs against the wall of humiliation, they came back a few weeks later fighting like wounded lions to clinch the Gold medal of the Atlanta Olympic Games.

Both were reminders of who we are as Nigerians, a proud race of fighters that never give up.

I was still trying to make some sense of that match, trying to work out the implications of that defeat into the future, when, from the blue, Lacey called me from her base in the United States of America.

Lacey O’Neale is an African/American. She is a well-respected ‘ambassador’ for US Track and field and for diplomacy, a former international athlete. She represented the USA at two Olympic Games in 1964 and 1972.

She was a very good friend to my late friend, Lee Edward Evans, and as a result, is my friend and sister. I was still in my reverie when Lacey called me up. She was agitated. She had her thoughts and opinion about the outcome.

I can’t quote her verbatim, but the substance of what she told me is what all Nigerians must hear. ‘What happened to the Super Eagles?’ She said it is an absence of the right frame of mind.

Nigerians, she said, are the smartest humans on the planet. They are everywhere, doing great things in virtually all fields of human endeavour. They hold the torch for the entire Black Race, and in the not too distant future, Nigeria shall become the greatest country in the world.

Many Black persons in America carry the genes of Nigeria in their bloodline. Everyone can see the faint signs everywhere, that Nigerians are coming in an avalanche, especially in entertainment and in several sports.

The rest of the world knows about Nigeria’s upsurge as unofficial leader of the Black race and civilisation in a new World down the lane of civilisation. Nigerians show it in their mannerisms- loud, educated, confident, proud, hardworking, daring and very, very smart.

Lacey says that attitude was missing in the Super Eagles. They did not fight as if their lives depended on winning. They played without the frame of mind of winners, no strategy, no determination, low energy, no fight, no spirit.

I understand what Lacey is talking about. It makes me remember past ‘warriors’ that epitomized the Nigerian spirit in how they played football, an ingredient that is missing in today’s Super Eagles – Tuñde Abeki, Bright Omokaro, Sunday Eboigbe, Harrison Mecha, Segun Olumodeji, Felix Owolabi, Sylvanus Okpala, Emmanuel Okala, Garba Lawal, Kanu Nwankwo, Victor Osimhen, Nwabueze Nwankwo, Musa Lawal, players who will play and leave the scars of war on the field of play.

Thierry Henry, the France and Arsenal FC legend, was asked who his most difficult opponent was during his playing career. He did not hesitate – it is a Nigerian international called Taribo West.

Taribo was a ‘terrorist’ on the field, hard as steel. He marked Henry so tightly and so closely that Henry said he would have followed him to the toilet.

You just did not defeat a Nigerian national team fully marinated in the local culture and spirit of Nigerian football, and walk away without big ‘scars’ of War.

Nigerian football is at its lowest ebb in terms of development. The issues are really deep and fundamental.
Thank you Lacey!