Golden Eaglets: Relishing History, Reaping Gains

Nigerians recently recorded a spate of historic sporting feats. First, a Nigerian, Wellington Jighere, emerged as the new scrabble world champion after walloping Lewis Mackay of England 4-0 at the tournament held in Perth, Australia. Nigeria also emerged as The Best Team of the championship with as many as five of her six representatives placing within the first 50 in the world. Next, the Nigerian U-20 women national football team, the Falconets, flew into the lion’s den, so to speak, and defeated their South African counterparts (Basetsana) 1-0 in Johannesburg to qualify for next year’s FIFA U-20 Women World Cup in Papua, New Guinea.

But the icing on the cake is easily the performance of the U-17 men’s football team at the FIFA U-17 Men’s World Cup in Chile. Some Golden Eaglets’ players also carted away many notable individual awards. The gangling striker who plays like the legendary Rashidi Yekini, Victor Osimhen, became the tournament’s all-time leading goal scorer with 10 goals, and garnered the Adidas Golden Boot for his efforts. He also received the Adidas Silver Ball as the tournament’s second best player. One of Victor’s records that might prove an impossible task to overturn is scoring in every single match right from the group stage to the final.

The quintessential captain of the team, Kelechi Nwakali, won the Adidas Golden Ball best player award as well as the Adidas Bronze Boot for being the third highest goal poacher. It was a two-way contest in the goalkeeping department between Nigeria’s Akpan Udoh and Mali’s Samuel Diarra for the Adidas Golden Glove award. In the end, the spectacular saves made by the Malian shot-stopper in the final game tilted the scales in his favour.

The Golden Eaglets chalked up victories in 1985, 1993, 2007, 2013 and 2015 to become the side with the most wins (the closest is Brazil with three wins), and were beaten finalists in 1987, 2001 and 2009. With the latest victory, Nigeria also became only the second team - after Brazil in 1997 and 1999 - to win the championship back-to-back. Quite interestingly, Nigeria alone has accounted for not less than four best players and five highest goal scorers since the championship began in 1985. Such intimidating statistics are simply symptomatic of Nigeria’s growing status as the undisputed king of cadet football.

The legendary king of football, Pele, once predicted many years back that an African country would sooner than later win the senior World Cup, after taking cognizance of the exploits of the Nigerian and Ghanaian cadet teams. Quite predictably, many observers are wondering why our award-winning youngsters are yet to progress to be world beaters in the mould of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Neymar, Alexis Sanchez, etc. And not a few commentators are attributing the inability of our rampaging youngsters to underscore their dominance by winning the senior World Cup to the selection of overage players.

Speaking for members of this school of thought, former international Adegoke Adelabu reportedly lamented that “While watching the Nigeria versus Croatia game it became crystal-clear to me that one side (Croatia) knew the rudiment of football while the other side (Golden Eaglets) lacked depth.” He attributed the Golden Eaglets’ “lack of skills and artistry” to the selection of overage players - “a deceit in age-grade football in the country,” he claimed,” that has gone on for too long.”

Adelabu then bellowed: “When 25-year-olds are struggling to play at the U-17 World Cup, how can we hope to have quality players for our senior teams when the time comes?” Another eminent proponent of this line of thought is the Editor of the Nation’s Sporting Life, Ade Ojeikere,  who, while appearing on a Sports Talk show programme on Silverbird Television pointedly and cynically asked the anchor, Jide Alabi, whether he believed “all that crap” about our boys being Under-17, but Jide stoically refused to bite his bait.

In fact, critics who spice their overage arguments with references to Philip Osondu and Chrisantus Macaulay as proof of under-performance at the senior level do great injustice and disservice to the likes of Sani Adamu, Jonanthan Akpoborie, Benedict Akwuegbu, Ibrahim Babangida, Celestine Babayaro, Victor Ikpeba, Nwankwo Kanu, Dimeji Lawal, John Mikel Obi, Peter Ogaba, Mobi Oparaku, Wilson Oruma, Nduka Ugbade and a host of others who graduated from cadet teams to meritoriously represent the nation at the senior World Cup and Olympic Games.

And why the orchestrated campaign against players in the Globacom Premier League making the U-17 team? Since when has it become a crime to be a football prodigy? Several of the players at Chile 2015, especially in the Australian, Brazilian, Croatian and Mexican teams, are already plying their trade in top-flight leagues. Why should our case be different? As a matter of fact, players like Martins Eyo, Haruna Ilerika, Stephen Keshi, Henry Nwosu, Godwin Ogbueze, Sam Okpodu, Godwin Okwufuleze, Thompson Usiyen, and countless others played for first division clubs while still in secondary schools.

It goes without saying that poorly researched outbursts by otherwise highly pedigreed sports journalists only end up creating an unsavoury situation where other countries deride our achievements at the cadet level. One thing is clear: the reasons behind our inability to replicate the historic feats of the cadet teams at the senior level are far more complex than just the use of overage players.

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