WE DON'T HAVE THE SUPER EAGLES ANYMORE!

 

NICHOLAS UWERUNONYE 

We had this 'august visitor' once, during an evening training at the then mini campus, University of Ilorin. It was Emmanuel Olisadebe, the Polish soccer international, observing a hiatus from Jasper United, in those days and thought to pay his school a visit. 

It was from him I learnt and knew what it means to be a Super Eagle.

It was an evening during a training with the Unilorin team, during mya second semester first year, if I remember correctly, at the then Mini Campus of the university.

It was the usual strict, gruelling training procedure under Coach Amusa Adisa, Football Coach, University of Ilorin.

Let's get something clear; I wasn't much of a good player. But Coach Adisa had use for guys like me.. maybe as what we call, 'training material.

 What I don't have in skills, I made up for with enough nuisance value that made most attackers avoid me.

Moreover, if you ever find yourself in Coach Adisa's team, you should count yourself lucky given the array of stars at his disposal in those days.

Apart from Olisadebe (a Part lll Computer Science student before he chose to pursue his soccer career), there were Niyi Ogunlana, Dayo Ajoge, Sanchez Abayomi, Yemi, a lefty with an incredible dribbling skills, all my contemporaries. There were others in the senior cadre like Silas, Adewunmi, Wasiu Ijagbo, too many, walahi.

So that day when I finally got to speak to Olisadebe, it was on the way to his buddy, Femi, later in the night. 

Femi's father worked as a teacher at GHS, Ilorin.

Femi's Dad, a no nonsense Agric teacher leaved in one of those post colonial style bungalows, East of the expansive campus of the secondary school (my alma mater, by the way). Olisadebe, Femi and I would later sit outside the building to have a chat.

"I can't play for the Super Eagles," Olisadebe said. He was responding to a question posed by Femi on the national team. 

If there was anybody that could talk Emma (Olisadebe) out of any bullheaded decision, it was Femi. They were more than buddies. They were brothers. I was closer to Femi than Emma who was from Delta like me. You see, Emma is like an untamable animal. There  is something always restless, primeval about him despite his outwardly cool demeanor on and off the football pitch. In his eyes, you can always see it.

Can such a man have an abiding loyalty to anything and anyone?

Femi is different. There is a toughness in him tempered with a deep sense of humanity, a need to put things in balance. Somehow, I had this feeling that Emma uses Femi as his moral compass and beacon that keeps him from falling off the edge.

 He knew himself well enough and knew, probably, that Nigeria offered him nothing.

"Why can't you play for Nigeria," I asked him that night. Emma looked at me. It was like the casual look of a leopard, dismissing what appeared to be runt of an animal, I thought at first.

But I was wrong. He took a long drag from his cigarette (yes, he smokes. And it shattered the myth I once held that good players don't smoke tobacco).

"Steven Keshi told me," he answered simply.

Emma was Unilorin's donation to the world university games. While in camp, Keshi had happened by, watched his game, and called him aside for a pep talk.

I can't recall all Emma said that night. But I came away with a distinct impression of Late Steven Keshi as an individual with an intense ability to understand the human psyche. 

"Keshi told me what it takes to play for Super Eagles and I knew that regardless of the skills I have as a player, I may not fit into the national team," Emma said.

That was preposterous, a blasphemy even for any one who have seen Emma play. Why would Keshi say that? 

Emma explained in his next breath.

"When you wear the great white green, you are not just a football player. You become a soldier, my brother," Emma said, quoting Late Keshi..

Emma said so, putting a hand my shoulder that evening.

And he went on. 

 "You go on the pitch with thousands of hostile eyeball trained on you and you don't give damn.

"Your concern at that time is the millions of die hard Nigerians looking up to you for hope that their nationhood should mean something.

"At that moment, your unpaid bonuses don't matter.

"What matters is win and winning convincingly because we we are Nigerians, people who conquer odds", Keshi said, according to Emma.

 I had goose pimples all over me when he was done with his story that night.

I met Keshi in 2013 in Abuja and we revisited this matter. 

I will speak on this later.