Much ado about Golden Eaglets’ victory!

NIGERIA has become the second country after Brazil to have  been able to retain the U-17 World Cup as a result of her 2 -0 victory over the Malian team in the final of the championship in Chile .

By implication, Nigeria has now won it/the competition, for the fifth time. The recent victory means she has won it back to back just like Brazil, which won it both in 1997 and 1999 respectively.

Further more, this will be the second time that two African countries will be meeting in the final of the same tournament.

The first two African national teams that met were Ghana and Nigeria in 1993, when Nigeria defeated Ghana 2-1 in Japan in 1993.

Despite the fact that most people, if not all Nigerians, never gave the victorious Golden Eaglets chance of winning, the rest is now history; that she has gone to Chile and won the tournament.
In fact, they could be likened to the victorious women who had gone to labour room and succeeded to return with their babies/children.

However, one should not forget that success has a lot of brothers and sisters, unlike failure.
Congratulations Nigeria, Nigerians, the coach and his Assistants and above all, the victorious Golden Eaglets for their defeat of the Africa champions at that level of competition. It was a football battle between an Africa champion and the world champion. At the end, the world champion, Nigeria, won.

If we had junior national teams, which had been performing at that level of competitions, for example, U 17 and U 20, what is the problem with the senior national team then?

The simple answer to this question is maladministration.
The proposed suggestions could be adopted for a possible re-positioning of our national team.
(1) The football governing body of our nation, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) should sincerely reorganise itself. It will help the development of the game of football in Nigeria. It is when the mouth smiles that the anus does the same too.
• Dr. Ransome Oboh ,
ransomeoboh@yahoo.com, a school proprietor, wrote from the Abeokuta Catholic Diocese.