Three very distinct entities and one national pastime. The ever-present almighty God spiritual creator and leader of existence.; Football, a global sport whose appeal is watching twenty-two grown men and these days women, chase a leather object across a large expanse of prime land; and The gods of football, a mish-mash group of skilled South American pretty boys and sometimes girlish men in yellow/gold and sweet blue.
What has this got to do with Nigeria? Wait a minute.
I have no dislike for the second entity, football. As a matter of fact, like most men across the globe, it probably ranks higher than any other thing that brings sheer exhilaration unto a man. Other men may not agree but then each to his own source of adrenaline and if doing Double Dutch in the backyard does it for you, so be it.
There is a competitiveness in global football that has immense value to world peace and happiness, each time for two hours. For fifteen minutes before a ninety-minute match and fifteen minutes thereafter, the streets are empty, the guns of rebels are silent, the thieves are in front of their most recent 42-inch steal, Al-Qaeda has deferred all engagements and no fraudulent contracts are issued for the moment. The world is at peace.
In Chechnya, Baghdad, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Palestine, the savannahs of East Africa and the rough seas off the coast of Somalia are all quiet for those glorious two hours. After that, all modes of worldly destruction resume with speed and gale force explosion. Why?
This is because for periods and sometimes long periods, while the worlds have been searching for the self-destruct button secretly hidden in mankind by God, there has been anticipation that builds up to fervent hysterical levels. Anticipation of sporting contact and hopes of winning and dreams of the ensuing celebrations. I wonder how the Heavens approach matchday.
The onus is greatly placed on the gladiators who will do battle on the prime land while bearing the burden of holding the hopes of the people. Twenty-two of them will sweat, kick, jump and sometimes punch their way through the ninety-minutes. Their aim is not so much to win but they are driven by the fear of being responsible for a loss. There is nothing more cumbersome than having responsibility for the hopes of millions. So what do you do?
Many teams gather early. They go away sometimes to prepare. They sweat, practice their kicks, try out new devious means of stopping an opponent stopping short of killing him/her. They do this for months or at least long before match day. This ritual raises the expectations of their followers all over the world. The pressure only builds up with more time accorded to preparation. One thing they hope to achieve is a degree of certainty that victory will be theirs based on the levels of preparedness.
The pretty boys and girlish men in yellow/gold and sweet blue have mastered this art. Sometimes they win and sometimes they lose. Even when they lose, unless when it is disastrously obvious that they failed a nation, it is bearable for their supporters. But because they have become so accustomed to winning, the expectation each time remains the same that they will most likely win.
Many other countries do the same. Governments provide as much as they can by way of facilities and latitude to assist their teams in reaching a performance level which almost ensures winning. If the teams do not win, it is sometimes bearable.
One thing is certain as there is a sky above. At every World Cup til the Lord gets back, They Germans, Brazilians, Argentineans (without Maradona as coach), Italians, Spanish, French and just maybe the over-confident English will make up the teams of the last stages of the World Cup.
The reasons are simple. They have prepared well. Practiced day and night, grown the sport through systems starting from kindergarten in their countries, spent lots of money on raising the standard of the game and their governments see this as an opportunity to divert the attention of the masses away from their ineptitude on many issues giving them a break. They are almost always ready to entertain the Heavens and earthlings.
So well-prepared they are, that sometimes they go far away and humiliate the opposition in their own backyards. The gods of football in yellow/gold and sweet blue did something akin to this over this past weekend.
Nigeria is oh so different. Who needs preparation and hard work? Who needs an effective and efficient structure for the development of sports? Who needs to be bothered with encouraging the youth ranks, if any, when we can always call in the old brigade and use over-aged players in every category? Yes, even at senior level we have over-aged players. The recent MRI bone scan controversy for the upcoming FIA Under-17 World Cup holding in Nigeria is nothing compared to the carbon-dating required at senior level.
While Nigeria shall continue to have the odd player who shows a high standard commensurate of global football, in the main, we shall continue to fall short of the expectations of 150 million people and the watching world.
Ask who will win this World Cup and the next and the next and the next, you will find that human beings have the potential of being excellent fortune tellers. Any country short of those mentioned earlier as the certainties and we may have a global revolution that horribly and drastically reduces the world’s population on our hands. Utter disaster, many commentators would qualify it as.
How does this tie into the three entities above? Bear with me.
The gods of football do what is necessary to prepare well and have the support of their leaders in providing the necessary structures and facilities for development. It is never a surprise that many onlookers go through the motions in preliminary rounds of competition at a World Cup while anticipating the arrival of the usual suspects at the later stages.
Nigeria is quite different in approach. The teams gather each day of preparation within the centre circle of the pitch, while the nation and supposedly expert commentators all also huddle in all-day prayer. That is if the nation manages to gather together enough ‘foreign-based’ players in time for these sessions.
Each prayer session calls on some unseen beings to score goals for them, to dribble past the opponent for them, to catch any thing thrown at them on the pitch including boot laces and ultimately to win each game for them. In some suggested cases, there have been calls for lightning to smite down upon the ‘enemies’ in opposition and maybe ‘blind’ the goalkeeper each time the Nigerians make the mistake of shooting the football directly at the opposition goal.
The amusing part of all of this is that Government and Administrative leaders of sports in Nigeria hold hands across the nation with preachers to chant at night-vigils and prayer sessions in preparation for competition. Inclusive of this groups will be Pillars of Sports in Africa, Heads of States, Governors and Sports Philanthropists. The remainder is made up of millions of people who simply seek relief in experiencing the joys of success. No sweat, no blood but lots of tears is usually the end result.
We can win every global competition if the football governing organization FIFA changed the rules of sporting engagement. If all we needed to do was Pray, Discuss the entire match in the Beer-parlours where we can verbally score as many goals as required to beat each opponent the head home. World champions Nigeria will be at all levels of competition.
I must give it to Nigeria though for her nationwide consistency in all we do including away from sports. Grandmasters of talk, trash and flash, winners of none.
Will we at least make the trip to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010? By little or no hard work and the Grace of God.
