By Tony Afejuku
It is the wish of every patriotic Nigerian to see our Super Eagles fly and soar to the 2026 FIFA World Cup to be hosted by Canada, Mexico and the United States of America. This will blossom to reality, so to say, only if our football administrators, organisers and planners have learned very well something patriotically and progressively about the learning of the totality of the football in and of the modern time.

My view in this regard may pit me against some of the current runners of our football. And these runners of our football include our coaches, medics, physiotherapists and psychologists at different levels. How really good are all of them?

This question brings me immediately to the question that is the title of this column today: “How far can Super Eagles go”? This question and the answer to it have already got us into difficulty relating to the pattern and systematic comprehension of Nigerian football – that is if we still have Nigerian football – which our Super Eagles should memorably typify and give a recognisably recognisable brand as in the days and decades of yore. What this sentence means or implies is that this is not so especially when we attempt to examine now the current texture and dynamics of Nigerian football.

Deliberately, I, a former sports columnist – and a veteran for that matter – have refrained from saying any word about our Super Eagles after my pertinent remark and advice to every organised (or should I say disorganised?) body of Nigerian football following the team’s gallant misadventure in the last Africa Cup of Nations Ivory Coast hosted.

As a matter of fact, before the Super Eagles memorably memorable capitulation in Abidjan in the match that mattered most, I had warned that they would not make it to the last (2022) FIFA World Cup that Qatar hosted.

The Super Eagles’ wings and feathers were melted by the power of the light of the Black Stars of Ghana in the last qualifying match here in Nigeria. I told the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) that the now-gone Mr Amaju Pinnick led and headed that the cosmology of the return leg would not be favourable to the Super Eagles.

Of course, something could be done to turn the cosmology and its tide to favour our team that was not purely pure for victory as a result of several factors. The NFF did not take me seriously maybe because I was the only systematic comprehender of what I, the gleaner systematically gleaned and comprehended through the guidance of the Supreme Spiritual Masters of Merit (SSMM).

The rest is history which I want to advise myself to let be as I don’t to muddle or ruffle the present with the not a pure or exact spirit of goodness of the then NFF. But I should say that the God-image of the self that is the possession of mine is asking the gleaner to say what should be said again if the Super Eagles must not fail us again.

Bad mistakes have been made starting from how the NFF lords hire and fire coaches in charge of the coaching of the Super Eagles. Of course, how the coaches were usually treated is another kettle of fish altogether.

The art or science of modern football makes it imperative for maximum cooperation to be given to the coaches, the parapsychologists, the players, the fans who diligently support the team as members of the supporters’ club, the medical team, and the cosmologists and others who form parts of the natural phenomenon that make the team what it is or what it should be. Providence in its inscrutable wisdom compels me to say what I have said so far.

I don’t want to say or assert other things in order to deliver openly our team to our adversaries. The weakness of our team ranging from its coach’s mental or tactical formation and play devoid of expected momentum at critical periods must not be laid bare here. The texture of our team as the preparations for the other matches are on-going should and must be yielded to those in charge of the Super Eagles in all ramifications.

As far as I know, football, as it has never been, is now – or has grown into – the subject of science or art or both; it contains an inexhaustible source of new critical discoveries and would be so for sometime even if new things as well as rules ceased to be written or applied. Coaches and administrators of football will keep on growing their perceptions of the beautiful game of the one and only Pele, the best ever the gods of football delivered to our world and beyond our plane.

Eric Sekhou Chelle, the new coach of the Super Eagles is sure that the chaps can still (not will still) qualify for the 2006 FIFA World Cup despite the disappointing 1-1 draw against Zimbabwe in Uyo. That match exposed him and called to question his mentality and tactic and credentials as a non-pseudo-coach. I say this despite his giving us victory for the first time ever against Rwanda in Rwanda.

The 2-0 victory in our favour was something that was meaningfully something especially as it was our very first victory I say it again, against Rwanda in Rwanda! Our true modern coach had/has truly arrived. But one swallow does not make summer. This true British wisdom was lost on us in our euphoria. In the next match against Zimbabwe at the Godswill Akpabio Stadium in Uyo, Chelle’s systematic structure of knowledge of the game failed him big time.

All that glitters is no gold. This second British wisdom brought to the fore our new value-judgment of the man who three days before his failure in Uyo had soared above Rwanda. His football taste or sense, we reflected – and still reflect – would cause us anxiety in subsequent matches. Rather than introducing solid defenders in order to consolidate his one goal lead, which his team laboured to get, he brought in attackers who contributed nothing to the advancement of the team – in the dying minutes of the game.

Is Chelle a critically alive coach? Does he read? What is his education like? Did he ask relevant or pertinent questions about the cosmological nature of the Godswill Akpabio Stadium that has become the waste space of the Super Eagles in recent times and in crucially crucial matches? Or is the stadium jinxed spiritually and otherwise? We should allow the Senate President to answer the question – despite his Natasha roforofo and travails.

The gleaner’s next question is this: Will the Super Eagles bloom and boom in the subsequent matches? Or will the Super Eagles systematically crash and sink in the next matches? How far will the Super Eagles go? How far can the Super Eagles go? How far will or can the Super Eagles soar at this momentous time and hour? The last match against South Africa in South Africa is going to be a memorably helluva tug-of-battle-and-of-war at the same time.

The eclectic choices all the handlers of our team will make will determine its outcome. I see the other matches in this light as well. What a helluva difficult assignment each one will be for our Super Eagles! For now, the gleaner is yet to see how a euphoriant drug called Chelle will give us euphoria and eureka – if the agent surely will or can.

What exactly do I mean? It is exactly what I mean.
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.