Mikel: If Nigeria were organised we’d have won the World Cup

[pajimoh]

I do not know that winning the World Cup would have been assured by better organization. However, Mikel's views are remarkably similar to the views that the Italian journalist, Filippo Ricci, shared with me in a discussion before the 1998 World Cup. At the time, he believed Nigeria needed someone like Giovanni Trappatoni to win the World Cup. This was his belief. My take is that while organization surely can help us, it cannot guarantee anything.

I think it would have been assured if we expand better organization to how we handle sports in general. I.e. everything from nutrition, livelihood, academies, the NPFL, the local infrastructure etc.

The statistics show that Nigeria is to be the hot-spot of football interest in the entire world!

Ahead of Brazil ahead of India, China etc.

And unlike India, China and the USA, this is our national sport. So when you put 2 and 2 together, if you deduce that Nigeria will have the largest football pool in the world (which we will) then what else has been missing? Surely we have been doing Sports the wrong way! Do you honestly think that our performance in Boxing, in the Olympics, in the Commonwealth games, in Table Tennis etc. is natural?

I cannot claim to know the future or how the past could have been reshaped, BUT if Nigeria had been a serious nation, I would put $5000 in a retrospective bet to say that we would have won the World Cup by now! The fact that we haven't is a direct indictment of how bad we have been as a nation.

You cannot tell me otherwise! We are the most underachieving footballing nation!

Nigeria should have the ability to field 5 different teams if they wanted to, so much talent in the country, there are thousands of okocha and kanu playing in barefoot!

How many Messi's are in Argentina or Neyma's in Brazil? The Okocha's show once in a blue moon

[marko]

Sharing big money before big games is a recipe for disaster, it happens to west african teams especially Nigeria, Ghana and cameroon, by the time they realise, they are back on the plane

[metalalloy]

Wow! So the 2014 team was in disarray too!

You forgotten all the quarreling, Gucci slipper-slaps, and money related boycotting before the France game?

i was about to say!

[Orion]

By 2050, in Nigeria there will be more people playing football than in any other place on the planet.

More than Brazil? Here we go again regarding this over exaggeration that usually accompanies Nigeria and population.

Brazil currently has more people and is 9 times bigger than Nigeria geographically to accommodate more growth.

Yet we say that this is our national sport, with a straight face....having achieved relatively little on the global stage.

That is also to say that by 2050, more football will be played in Nigeria than anywhere else on the planet, yet somehow we shouldn't be a dominant force in the sport? By what logic?

It is one of our biggest failures as a nation!

90% of Nigerians I meet do not follow the SE, know when their next game is, or know the players in the team. You guys exaggerate our interest in football in that country. A small group of fans are in an echo chamber and think the whole country is like that. We've plateaued because our interest in the sport is actually not as good as we make it out to be. Yes, it's our national sport - but only a small pocket of fans is really interested in football. Across Africa, it is pretty much the same. Look at the AFCON, for example, it plays mostly to empty stadiums until the final game.

[Tbite]

Tbite,

I wish you, Mikel, and Filippo are correct on this. However, while I believe results could have improved for Nigeria, I am not so sure about winning because there are others that are also full of talents and will also be organized.

I do not know that winning the World Cup would have been assured by better organization. However, Mikel's views are remarkably similar to the views that the Italian journalist, Filippo Ricci, shared with me in a discussion before the 1998 World Cup. At the time, he believed Nigeria needed someone like Giovanni Trappatoni to win the World Cup. This was his belief. My take is that while organization surely can help us, it cannot guarantee anything.

I think it would have been assured if we expand better organization to how we handle sports in general. I.e. everything from nutrition, livelihood, academies, the NPFL, the local infrastructure etc.

The statistics show that Nigeria is to be the hot-spot of football interest in the entire world!

Ahead of Brazil ahead of India, China etc.

And unlike India, China and the USA, this is our national sport. So when you put 2 and 2 together, if you deduce that Nigeria will have the largest football pool in the world (which we will) then what else has been missing? Surely we have been doing Sports the wrong way! Do you honestly think that our performance in Boxing, in the Olympics, in the Commonwealth games, in Table Tennis etc. is natural?

I cannot claim to know the future or how the past could have been reshaped, BUT if Nigeria had been a serious nation, I would put $5000 in a retrospective bet to say that we would have won the World Cup by now! The fact that we haven't is a direct indictment of how bad we have been as a nation.

You cannot tell me otherwise! We are the most underachieving footballing nation!

When I say organize, I am using that term broadly.

but the easiest parallel would be Brazil. What makes Brazil any different than Nigeria? We will actually be a bigger football nation than Brazil in the coming years, in terms of interest and activity.

We are also neck and neck in terms of passion. So Nigeria is the top nation potentially in terms of interest, activity and passion. Which means Nigeria = football.

Then what is left? Everything that is left is structural, organizational, systemic. I do not believe that because of unpredictable factors we wouldn't be dominant, we are not saying based on 1 World Cup but over many decades! BTW The only parallel to Nigeria would be Brazil. The ONLY one!

The difference between Brazil and Nigeria is that they are a better country, relatively better infrastructure, relatively safer, relatively better league, better management of sports in general. And this is not limited to football. It is no accident that they have produced the likes of Ayrton Senna and Maria Esther Bueno.

Brazil is not 10 times better than Nigeria because of something inherent in their love for the game, because of Samba or whatever else, which is why Brazil is also a better sporting nation than Nigeria in general. Brazil is dominant in football in a way that we are not, because of reasons external to football, in addition to the footballing factors. They have that healthy combination.

We should be in the same league as Brazil! Not in the same league as England or Turkey or Portugal or Netherlands, but Brazil! Football was not allowed to develop in Nigeria in the way it was allowed to do so in Brazil! Our environment inhibits talent and limits growth! But that baseline talent, that baseline love for the game is EQUAL or even potentially greater than Brazil's!

[Tbite]

By 2050, in Nigeria there will be more people playing football than in any other place on the planet.

More than Brazil? Here we go again regarding this over exaggeration that usually accompanies Nigeria and population.

Brazil currently has more people and is 9 times bigger than Nigeria geographically to accommodate more growth.

Yet we say that this is our national sport, with a straight face....having achieved relatively little on the global stage.

That is also to say that by 2050, more football will be played in Nigeria than anywhere else on the planet, yet somehow we shouldn't be a dominant force in the sport? By what logic?

It is one of our biggest failures as a nation!

90% of Nigerians I meet do not follow the SE, know when their next game is, or know the players in the team. You guys exaggerate our interest in football in that country. A small group of fans are in an echo chamber and think the whole country is like that. We've plateaued because our interest in the sport is actually not as good as we make it out to be. Yes, it's our national sport - but only a small pocket of fans is really interested in football. Across Africa, it is pretty much the same. Look at the AFCON, for example, it plays mostly to empty stadiums until the final game.

No not exaggerating. I ran the numbers. I do not make things up. I am not that type of forumer.

Look at our population projections for 2050 and also look at this.

https://nielsensports.com/global-interest-football/

I can say for a FACT that in 2050 we are the most important footballing nation in the world in terms of everything but actual OUTPUT. That is a FACT.

Look at my other post here. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=285717&p=5164876&hi ... a#p5164876

By that logic I feel like we need to be talking about winning the World Cup, periodically, not because we are ready to win it, but as a way to remind our administrators and our nation as a whole that we have underachieved in a way that is unthinkable and we need to work hard to redeem ourselves.

[wiseone]

Yes, Muyiwalawal/Inner Caucus called it...

Wow! So the 2014 team was in disarray too!

You forgotten all the quarreling, Gucci slipper-slaps, and money related boycotting before the France game?

[maceo4]

Btw, KOC don hammer, I’ll be looking for exclusive camp gist, also is one of those babes Khalela?

[metalalloy]

Btw, KOC don hammer, I’ll be looking for exclusive camp gist, also is one of those babes Khalela?

What happened to KoC?

The one on the right is definitely not Khalela.

[Tbite]

I do not know that winning the World Cup would have been assured by better organization. However, Mikel's views are remarkably similar to the views that the Italian journalist, Filippo Ricci, shared with me in a discussion before the 1998 World Cup. At the time, he believed Nigeria needed someone like Giovanni Trappatoni to win the World Cup. This was his belief. My take is that while organization surely can help us, it cannot guarantee anything.

I think it would have been assured if we expand better organization to how we handle sports in general. I.e. everything from nutrition, livelihood, academies, the NPFL, the local infrastructure etc.

The statistics show that Nigeria is to be the hot-spot of football interest in the entire world!

Ahead of Brazil ahead of India, China etc.

And unlike India, China and the USA, this is our national sport. So when you put 2 and 2 together, if you deduce that Nigeria will have the largest football pool in the world (which we will) then what else has been missing? Surely we have been doing Sports the wrong way! Do you honestly think that our performance in Boxing, in the Olympics, in the Commonwealth games, in Table Tennis etc. is natural?

I cannot claim to know the future or how the past could have been reshaped, BUT if Nigeria had been a serious nation, I would put $5000 in a retrospective bet to say that we would have won the World Cup by now! The fact that we haven't is a direct indictment of how bad we have been as a nation.

You cannot tell me otherwise! We are the most underachieving footballing nation!

Nigeria should have the ability to field 5 different teams if they wanted to, so much talent in the country, there are thousands of okocha and kanu playing in barefoot!

No matter which way you slice and dice it, it is obvious that Nigeria is a place where talent is killed before it rises. Another point to raise before I retire to bed, is the fact that Brazil and Nigeria are the same land separated by tectonic activity and re-connected via the slave trade. That slave trade which potentially resulted in many Afro-Brazilians being of Nigerian origin!

Pele could be of Nigerian origin, Ronaldo Lima (who is part African) could be of Nigerian descent. Just picture the direct connection here! These are legends whose equals could just as easily have emerged from Nigeria, but did not, because Nigeria was inhospitable. The Brazilian flair? Samba, what place has been associated with influencing the Latin American flair and culture? Is it not the Western half of Africa?) Please, there is nothing inherently better football wise in Brazil than in Nigeria!

Nigeria is Brazil's parallel in every way imaginable, but for the organization and the structure!

If we were half the country Brazil was, we would have at least one WC. Every now and again, a less than stellar country or region develops a regimen that works for them, which is often the case because of some population explosion or inherent socio-environmental advantage, such as East Africa in long distance. But for the most part, it is organization, it is the structure that leads to success. Even Jamaica, which is a less than stellar country, has a brilliant track & field calendar and training network!

As far as inherent qualities go in football, the top two nations in the world are Brazil and Nigeria! Go ahead and dispute that! Unfortunately for us, no amount of inherent football advantage can bridge the gap between how dysfunctional our nation is. Football is far too complex a sport for that to be the case, perhaps in the youth levels but not elsewhere.

There is NO WAY on earth that Nigeria does not become a dominant nation in football if we become serious as a nation! No way! It is impossible.

[goke313]

lol same thing said every WC year. in 2022, we'll hear about disarray about the 2018 team

[Orion]

Those are not facts. Someone just made them up based on often exaggerated opinions.

No not exaggerating. I ran the numbers. I do not make things up. I am not that type of forumer.

Look at our population projections for 2050 and also look at this.

https://nielsensports.com/global-interest-football/

I can say for a FACT that in 2050 we are the most important footballing nation in the world in terms of everything but actual OUTPUT. That is a FACT.

Look at my other post here. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=285717&p=5164876&hi ... a#p5164876

By that logic I feel like we need to be talking about winning the World Cup, periodically, not because we are ready to win it, but as a way to remind our administrators and our nation as a whole that we have underachieved in a way that is unthinkable and we need to work hard to redeem ourselves.

What authority do they have that you call their report "fact"? They put something up there based on (often exaggerated) opinions and exaggerated projections based on current false data. That real FACTS are what you actually see on the ground. The empty stadiums; the fact MOST Nigerians you meet will not even know when next the SE are playing (and don't care); how little our local businesses are willing to invest in the sport because there is no ROI (if the population were really that fanatical about football local businesses would cash in on it and spend more on sponsorship because it's all about business and profits). Those are the real facts and they look nowhere near as good as what is being made up on paper.

[Enugu II]

Those are not facts. Someone just made them up based on often exaggerated opinions.

No not exaggerating. I ran the numbers. I do not make things up. I am not that type of forumer.

Look at our population projections for 2050 and also look at this.

https://nielsensports.com/global-interest-football/

I can say for a FACT that in 2050 we are the most important footballing nation in the world in terms of everything but actual OUTPUT. That is a FACT.

Look at my other post here. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=285717&p=5164876&hi ... a#p5164876

By that logic I feel like we need to be talking about winning the World Cup, periodically, not because we are ready to win it, but as a way to remind our administrators and our nation as a whole that we have underachieved in a way that is unthinkable and we need to work hard to redeem ourselves.

What authority do they have that you call their report "fact"? They put something up there based on (often exaggerated) opinions and exaggerated projections based on current false data. That real FACTS are what you actually see on the ground. The empty stadiums; the fact MOST Nigerians you meet will not even know when next the SE are playing (and don't care); how little our local businesses are willing to invest in the sport because there is no ROI (if the population were really that fanatical about football local businesses would cash in on it and spend more on sponsorship because it's all about business and profits). Those are the real facts and they look nowhere near as good as what is being made up on paper.

Orion,

While I agree with you that there are reasons to question the statistics cited by Tbite, I do not believe that those you have cited are more compelling. I would argue that Tbite's citation is much stronger than citing an anecdote that you referred to or stadium attendance. Consider that with the latter there is really no relationship to how much people love football. Stadium attendance requires paying a gate. It isn't free. Thus, even if you love football you may not show up because you cannot afford to pay. Consider what happened in Kaduna when the gates were thrown open (without charge) to Nigerians in the game v Egypt. Thus using stadium attendance without the consideration of impact of financial ability is a big question.

As for Nigerians not knowing when the game is scheduled. Is that not the issue of organization that is being referred to here? The lack of proper information? In essence, you cannot simply conclude that it indicates the lack of interest in the game.

Those are just my tuppence.

[danfo driver]

Btw, KOC don hammer, I’ll be looking for exclusive camp gist, also is one of those babes Khalela?

What happened to KoC?

The one on the right is definitely not Khalela.

[Cellular]

Wow! So the 2014 team was in disarray too!

You forgotten all the quarreling, Gucci slipper-slaps, and money related boycotting before the France game?

Was a dysfunctional team. Thanks to the NFF and the usual Naija politics. The disagreement over player selection before the tournament. Imposition of players by the NFF. The overnight argument over money before the France game. Having to fly cash to Brasil to settle dispute.

And straight up acrimony amongst players.

[Cellular]

Wow! So the 2014 team was in disarray too!

News to me as well. Like the man said, they hid it very well.

No news to me. If I had made mention of the things that happened in 2014 camp, some guys would've asked for evidence. One of the infighting on Eagles camp is always between the players who deserve to be in the squad and those that came in through the back door.

............and you were one of the LOUDEST mouths on CE that got Osaze in 'through the back door'!!
So you have every reason to hold your peace then....................'cos you were part of the problem.

true

[mcal]

2014 was a disaster. We could have achieved much more.
I remember Keshi (RIP) saying that he hasn’t watched tape of the teams in our group because you don’t need that to play football. This was days prior to our first match vs Iran.

Hate all you want but Pinnic and Rohr have done a good job with the team. This is the most organized we’ve ever been. I understand why Rohr is hesitant to bring in new players.

...I will continue to say it, it's because of the white man.
I can't imagine a Nigeria at the helms and thing would be this smooth.
We are our greatest enemy.

[okuns]

Wow! So the 2014 team was in disarray too!

News to me as well. Like the man said, they hid it very well.

Osaze?

How can anyone forget the Gucci incident?

[maceo4]

Btw, KOC don hammer, I’ll be looking for exclusive camp gist, also is one of those babes Khalela?

What happened to KoC?

The one on the right is definitely not Khalela.

left nko? Would tfco? Lol

[txj]

Wow! So the 2014 team was in disarray too!

You forgotten all the quarreling, Gucci slipper-slaps, and money related boycotting before the France game?

Was a dysfunctional team. Thanks to the NFF and the usual Naija politics. The disagreement over player selection before the tournament. Imposition of players by the NFF. The overnight argument over money before the France game. Having to fly cash to Brasil to settle dispute.

And straight up acrimony amongst players.

A bad situation was also not helped by an unprofessional manager, if we are to be completely honest...

[mcal]

lol same thing said every WC year. in 2022, we'll hear about disarray about the 2018 team

...we have not played or lost any fifa wc match yet in 2018. If that happens (without dignity) then we can expect the report in 2022

[mcal]

Wow! So the 2014 team was in disarray too!

You forgotten all the quarreling, Gucci slipper-slaps, and money related boycotting before the France game?

Was a dysfunctional team. Thanks to the NFF and the usual Naija politics. The disagreement over player selection before the tournament. Imposition of players by the NFF. The overnight argument over money before the France game. Having to fly cash to Brasil to settle dispute.

And straight up acrimony amongst players.

A bad situation was also not helped by an unprofessional manager, if we are to be completely honest...

...is the current manager professional?
We drew and lost the last 2 friendlies, if that had been local coach in charge can you imagine rap of unprofessionalism heaped on him.

[danfo driver]

Wow! So the 2014 team was in disarray too!

You forgotten all the quarreling, Gucci slipper-slaps, and money related boycotting before the France game?

Was a dysfunctional team. Thanks to the NFF and the usual Naija politics. The disagreement over player selection before the tournament. Imposition of players by the NFF. The overnight argument over money before the France game. Having to fly cash to Brasil to settle dispute.

And straight up acrimony amongst players.

A bad situation was also not helped by an unprofessional manager, if we are to be completely honest...

...is the current manager professional?
We drew and lost the last 2 friendlies, if that had been local coach in charge can you imagine rap of unprofessionalism heaped on him.

Could you kindly reconcile these two statements?